Off course

Now, what about that foray into Georgia? No, not Russia's nasty little war in the Caucasus. The issue is N.C. Central University's unauthorized satellite campus at an Atlanta-area megachurch.

The N&O's Eric Ferreri reported Sunday on a UNC System campus that sailed off on its own to set up a degree program 400 miles away. NCCU apparently never informed system headquarters. It certainly didn't get the go-ahead.

Those factors, and questionable academic credentials of some instructors at the branch campus in Lithonia, Ga., shut down the program this summer. NCCU, now under a new and -- let's hope -- improved administration, should explain just what happened. It and the UNC System must also look after the 50 or so students who, through no fault of their own, enrolled in a program with no future.

That program began during the tenure of James H. Ammons as NCCU's chancellor. It is linked to an alumnus and trustee of the Durham school, Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia. The branch campus was at the 25,000-member New Birth church, and apparently functioned as a service for parishioners.

Whatever the merit, or lack of it, of running a public college at a church and so far from the main campus, the glaring procedural fault lay in NCCU's ignoring the UNC System's approval process for academic offerings. That was, says UNC President Erskine Bowles, "contrary to all university policy." Ammons, now president of Florida A&M University, may also have cut corners with NCCU's own Board of Trustees -- it's not clear if the board ever approved the program. Strike three is that a key accrediting agency wasn't told about it.

There's a fault, as well, in how the program was conceived. Either Bishop Long asked NCCU to set up a branch at his church and campus officials too readily acquiesced, or else the university, eager to gain students and/or butter up a big donor, offered Long his own mini-college. New Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who inherited the situation, should make sure that from now on all programs are properly designed and officially approved.