Victoria Advocate News February 5, 2011 Arkansas board votes for doctorate at UAPB LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A proposal to allow the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff to offer a doctoral degree has cleared an initial hurdle. The Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Friday approved a measure that will allow the school to offer doctorates, and will vote at a future meeting on specifically letting the university offer a doctorate through its nationally renowned aquaculture and fisheries center. The procedure is a two-step process that begins with a school getting approval to change its "role and scope," which expands the school's mission to the doctoral level, and ends with a vote on a specific program. Jim Purcell, director of the state Department of Higher Education, called for a comprehensive review of the university as a condition of expanding its role and scope after the Arkansas State Nursing Board pulled its accreditation of UAPB's nursing program. "I don't think we can be presented with something like this with these serious indictments and just ignore it," board member Steve Luelf of Mountain Home said after reading the report. The review was completed by Southwestern Oklahoma State University provost Blake Sonobe and Hansel Burley, associate dean at Texas Tech University. It criticized low admissions standards, a complicated registration processes, lack of emphasis on research and relatively low faculty salaries at UAPB, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. "UAPB administration, faculty and staff should resolve to never again allow its name to become associated with low quality or failed programs," the review said. "If graduate education is a new priority, then graduate education must grow while developmental education becomes more restricted." Mary Benjamin, UAPB vice chancellor for academic affairs, told the Higher Education Board on Friday that the university disputed some findings of the most recent consultants' report. Administrators intended to protest the findings in a letter to the Higher Education Department, but they canceled those plans in hopes of speeding approval of the fisheries doctorate, she said. "There are some comments in that report that really do not reflect the reality of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff," Benjamin said. State Higher Education Coordinating Board members unanimously approved the doctorate proposal, citing its potential to further advance valuable research and economic development efforts in the state. But they stressed that their approval was limited to the aquaculture and fisheries program, and expressed frustration with other university programs. "I think this report showed that Pine Bluff is not ready for a doctoral program," said Vice Chairman David Leechof Stuttgart. "But, in the fisheries area, they are." The school doesn't currently offer doctorates in any subject. The aquaculture/fisheries program offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville offers the largest array of graduate programs of any of the state's 11 publicly funded universities. "The state needs it, and I think there's a great deal of research to support that," Carole Engle, director of the university's Aquaculture and Fisheries Center, said of the doctorate. "The need of the state is driving everything." Arkansas is the second largest producer of aquaculture products in the U.S., behind Mississippi. Farmers and wildlife experts from around the world send fish into the center's fish pathology unit to identify diseases and halt their spread. UAPB hopes to introduce the doctoral program this fall, starting with up to 15 students. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org www.hbculibraries.org 404.592.4820 Skype:sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org Honor the ancestors, honor the children.