Two master’s degree programs in the Johns Hopkins School of Education have lost their specialized accreditation status because not enough courses were taught by core faculty members.
A university spokeswoman confirmed that students within the school’s Master of Science programs for clinical mental health counseling and school counseling were notified this week of the loss of accreditation. The school has applied to be reaccredited.
The School of Education as a whole remains accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, but the two programs no longer have a special accreditation from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs.
On the school’s website, it acknowledges that “in recent years, earning a degree from a council-accredited program has become a preferred credential by employers.”
The university estimated that the change affects about 200 of the education school’s 2,460 students. Students in the two programs who graduate in December will not be affected by the accreditation change.
In a notice to students, the college wrote, “students who graduate from the School Counseling or Clinical Mental Health Counseling programs later than December 2019 will not — for now — be considered to have graduated from a CACREP-accredited program.”
The school submitted an application for reaccreditation in July, and it is under review. If the college is successful in earning its accreditation back, students who graduated within the past 18 months of the approval date would be considered having graduated from a CACREP-accredited program.
“The school is confident it has adequately addressed an issue raised, which relates to the percentage of full- and part-time faculty in the program, and looks forward to a favorable visit this spring, during which it will demonstrate meeting and exceeding all standards,” spokeswoman Mary Beth Regan wrote in a statement.
According to Regan, CACREP cited one standard that was out of compliance, which requires that “at least 51 percent of credit hours generated in a calendar year must be taught by core faculty.”
Since 2018, she wrote, the school has hired 10 full-time counseling faculty members and will now meet the standard.