CSUN Business School Is Postponing Accreditation By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter Faced with the likelihood that the application to renew its business school accreditation would be turned down, Cal State Northridge officials have pulled out of the running, and will go back to the drawing board to begin a new application from scratch. The accreditation, from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, comes up for renewal every 10 years and does not affect CSUN’s standing with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the standard bearer for academic institutions. Michael P. Fronmueller, newly appointed dean of CSUN’s College of Business and Economics, said the certification is important to the school nonetheless. “Out of the 2,000-plus business schools, only 18 percent are accredited by that particular accrediting agency,” Fronmueller said. “We like to be associated with them because working with them helps you to develop the quality of your programs.” The renewal process, which takes close to two years, was nearing its final stages when Fronmueller took the reins at the school. After meeting with the AACS board, he determined that the evaluation team was not satisfied with the published work of the school’s faculty. Rather than take the chance of being denied re-certification, Fronmueller decided to withdraw the school’s application and begin again. “When they look at us again in another year, the numbers are going to be up by 100 percent or 200 percent,” Fronmueller said. “The thing is the process works and our faculty are capable of producing (what the team wants).” Officials at AACS declined to comment publicly on individual reviews, but Fronmueller said the team was looking for a larger number of scholarly academic papers more titles like “Durability and Tests of the Permanent Income Hypothesis Using Partially Disaggregated Consumption Data,” a journal article that was written by a CSUN faculty member and published in Applied Economics. Ironically, CSUN’s strength in the business community that recruits from the school is seen as its pragmatic teaching approach, which business leaders say better prepares students for the real world than do research-driven programs. “I have a half dozen CSUN business school graduates on my staff,” said Roberto Barragan, president of the Valley Economic Development Center and a member of one of the school’s advisory boards. “What they bring is a practical approach that’s something I don’t get from the bigger-name schools. For that reason, I don’t see this as an issue.” Other advisory council members for CSUN concurred that the accreditation would not affect the school’s standing in the community. “It’s a very fine school and it had nothing to do with the academic ability of the school,” said Deborah Feldman, a partner at Arter & Hadden LLP who sits on the advisory panel for CSUN’s Real Estate Center. “This is an added accreditation.” CSUN’s current accreditation standing expires in June 2003. Because of the length of the process to reapply, Fronmueller said there will likely be some lapse in accreditation. He expects the school’s standing to be renewed by spring 2004.
