Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning describing the takeover of Columbia College Hollywood by Arizona State University.  The Western Association of Schools and Colleges has given a critical review of the new venture.  Here is an excerpt from the The Chronicle article.

“Evidently reassured by double-digit enrollment growth coming out of California amid the Great Recession, ASU’s designs for greater market share in the Golden State have since come to extend well beyond traditional recruitment, and now feature targeted asset purchases of buildings and intellectual property, repeated six-figure lobbying campaigns in Sacramento, as well as the multi-million-dollar backing of a financially unstable California film school.

Though it’s not uncommon in this era of widening haves and have-nots for well-resourced public universities like ASU to absorb struggling colleges, in many cases private universities have simply proved more eager to land such takeover deals. Still, there are few, if any, precedents for ASU and how it has approached expansion inside and outside of Arizona.

“Los Angeles is a behemoth place with three research schools,” ASU President Michael Crow remarked to the Los Angeles Times in 2018 after ASU agreed to lease the city’s historic Herald Examiner building. “Who says that’s enough?”

But even the best-laid plans — including those designed and backed by a multibillion dollar mega-university in Tempe — can’t anticipate and neutralize the future uncertainty that can accompany expansion plans.

A little over a year removed from ASU’s takeover of Columbia College Hollywood — a long-beleaguered private nonprofit Southern California college since rechristened California College of ASU — its accreditor, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (Senior College and University Commission), in June reaffirmed its December 2023 warning about the college’s finances and ASU’s oversight of the institution….

At their site visit in March, WASC evaluators questioned CC-ASU’s ever-plummeting enrollments and shaky finances. The accrediting team’s harshest criticisms concerned repeated observations of apparent institutionwide dysfunction and poor leadership.

“Over the course of the visit it became increasingly apparent that the board has failed in its oversight of executive leadership to a degree that shared governance, trust, and effective information sharing has been deeply eroded,” WASC representatives wrote, citing several pieces of evidence, including:

• “The apparent unilateral hiring of the acting CEO by two board members;”
  ● The unplanned absence of said acting CEO during WASC’s site visit;
  ● A lack of clarity about the future of certain academic programs that had long been offered by Columbia College Hollywood and were taken over by ASU;
  ● A lack of engagement from high-level leadership on facility needs and usage.

“Change can be difficult,” James O’Brien, ASU’s senior vice president of university affairs, wrote. “The journey of California College has been complicated and it is now emerging into a new California institution of higher education in Downtown L.A. with a refreshed mission and a bright future.”

We wish ASU good luck with this venture!

Tony

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