One of Milligan’s sister schools, Cincinnati Christian University, announced that they would be closing their doors at the end of the fall 2019 semester. On Oct. 29, Milligan released information about a “teach-out” agreement to assist CCU students.
CCU announced the closing of their campus on Oct. 28 due to possible loss of their accreditation status. The university also experienced difficulty providing reasonably priced accredited ministry programs, CCU’s most popular program. While the school tried to expand in order to keep its doors open, they were unable to overcome financial challenges.
Milligan’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Garland Young and Director of Admissions, Kristen Wright have been working to finalize the teach-out agreement with CCU students. The goal for the teach-out agreement is to evaluate the transcripts of CCU students and offer as much transfer credit as possible for undergraduate and graduate programs.
“All of our accrediting bodies require a teach-out agreement for this purpose,” Young said. “Without this program many students would be left hanging and that would be unfair.” Milligan is joined by 15 other institutions in the teach-out agreement for CCU students.
“In preliminary meetings, we also talked to [the school] about how we could help their students while maintaining the academic integrity that we are obligated to in terms of our students’ expectations and our accreditation’s expectations.” Young said.
In most cases, freshmen, sophomores and juniors will be treated as regular transfer students. Admissions counselors normally do a transcript evaluation to see which classes lineup with Milligan’s transfer policies. “That is how we determine which classes transfer students have to take,” Young said. “Because of the transfer policies already set in place, they will be handled like normal transfer students.”
Seniors that are set to graduate in 2020 from CCU will be unable to graduate from Milligan with a Milligan degree. “This is not our decision,” Young said.
According to Milligan’s accreditor, in order for transfer students to graduate with a degree from Milligan, one quarter of an undergraduate degree must be earned at Milligan, and one third of a graduate degree must be earned at Milligan.
“I don’t know that there is a way to predict how many students will come to Milligan from CCU because we have never had a sister school close before,” Wright said. “Although we have several students going through the pipeline of the transferring process; I do not anticipate it being more than 20-30 students, but 5-10 would be great on the undergraduate side.”
The only similar graduate program that CCU has to Milligan’s is the seminary program. “Since the ramifications between programs are so different, I do not know if we will get a huge group from the graduate seminary program because that program from CCU isn’t that big either.” Wright said.
Since the announcement of its closing, Milligan’s admissions office and cabinet has been working with CCU’s staff to make accommodations for each student. “We will try to meet students needs and serve them as they need it,” Wright said. “There is no cap or goal we are trying to reach with how many CCU students we take.”
The teach-out program is a process that is still being finalized because of the unprecedented situation of CCU closing. Milligan faculty and staff will update the Milligan community as more information is finalized.
Headline photo: The CCU campus entrance. Photo from Local 12 News- Cincinnati.