College responds to SACS investigation

Texarkana College President Dr. Alan Rasco has until Monday to respond to an official complaint filed with SACS concerning the actions of Board member Molly Beth Malcolm.
SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, is the accreditation agency for colleges and schools in 11 states, including Texas.

"It is not a legal proceeding," Dr. Rasco said. "If you have a complaint about the school, you can get the form from Southern Association and send it in."
Former TC Board member Frank McClain filed the complaint in November, which resulted in an active investigation. The complaint alleges that Malcolm interfered with the daily activities at TC.

"It's very sad that someone would file a complaint against the college to try to cause harm to the school on baseless lies," Board secretary Malcolm said. "It clearly shows that people don't truly care about this college and would be willing to try to risk hurting the college because perhaps they do not like me."

At this point, SACS is gathering information concerning the complaint.
"We are investigating the complaint," Belle Wheelan, president of the SACS Commission on Colleges said.

Anyone who has an issue with a school can send a complaint form to SACS. However, Dr. Rasco said a more appropriate way to handle the situation would be to go through the internal process to correct the problem before addressing SACS.

"The board and I will be very open and transparent; there is nothing to hide," Dr. Rasco said. "What they complained about everyone on campus has known about for a long time and if there was a violation we would have to correct it and if we didn't Southern Association would send a team down and make us correct it."

When contacted by the TC News, McClain declined to speak on matters concerning the investigation.

"I do not feel comfortable answering questions at this time because it is still an ongoing investigation," McClain said.

Malcolm responded to an article that appeared in the March 23 issue of the Texarkana Gazette about the letter of complaint filed with SACS.

"The letter that was sent does not name me, so everything in the paper was just what somebody said," Malcolm said. "The time that I spend here is because I have been asked to be here and working on things to make this college better and I will continue to do that because it is all about student success."