Just a couple of opinions for what they're worth......
I really think the Hawaii Consumer Protection Agency should be able to help students. Also, the idea about contacting the Hawaii Pharmacist's Association is a good one as well. You may be able to find someone there who is connected and can get you some help from within the state.
I'll say it again...ACPE is not the venue to explore retribution against HICP. ACPE either grants accreditation or not, based on its published standards. They've already recommended that HICP withdraw their application for candidate status. They don't have legal authority to stop HICP from continuing their program or from continuing to admit students. I think you have seen ACPE take action in that the revised standards now require regional accreditation (and at the risk of being redundant, I'll reiterate that HICP students should be asking about that). Regional accreditation is a much bigger deal and requires alot of work and preparation on the part of the applicant College or Universities. I've also heard that WASC is one of the tougher regional accrediting agencies (but take that for what it is....I haven't compared regional accreditation standards across the country, so I couldn't really say). However, in general, regional accreditation, because it is accreditation of an entire institution, rather than just one program will look at the organization of an institution, how it is run, how it is governed, how decisions are made, financial policies, etc. in a much more all-encompassing manner than ACPE would. In other words, HICP will not be able to simply take the stuff they've submitted to ACPE--even if it were pristene and followed ACPE standards to the letter--and submit it to WASC.
A couple of earlier posts asked about accreditation issues regarding faculty and class size. Not having adequate numbers of full-time faculty will be an issue for ACPE accreditation. Although the standards are not specific regarding actual numbers, most programs go by a "rule of thumb" of needing about 1 full-time faculty member for every 10 students. There is more to the role of being a faculty member than just showing up to class. The design and delivery of the curriculum as well as the curricular content should represent a joint effort by all faculty and should be approved by the faculty as a whole. Admissions and admission policies typically are also the purview of the faculty and not dictated by the administration. Particularly in a new school, there are alot of policies and procedures that need to be put in place, evaluated, and changed if necessary. There's alot of effort put forth by faculty outside of the classroom in order to keep a program running smoothly and in compliance with accreditation standards. So not having enough core faculty will be an issue for accreditation.
Not having a chief administrator for the program will also be an issue (e.g., not an "interim"), and as I've stated in earlier posts, the dean needs to be qualified.
Decreasing the class size next year won't solve the accreditation issues either. Regardless of the total number of students, a program still needs to demonstrate to ACPE that it has enough full-time, qualified faculty to allow all aspects of the program to run smoothly. The program will also need to have some clear definition as to how it will accomplish the experiential component of the curriculum (enough sites, enough qualified preceptors, etc.) Just like you all, I've read what ACPE has reported with regard to HICP and it seems evident that this goes beyond accepting 240 students into its initial class (however ill-advised that move was).
Like LVPharm, I'm truly saddened by this. Ultimately, it is the students who have paid the price (figuratively and literally) and I hope all HICP students find a resolution to their situation.
I also agree that on the surface, at least, the proposed school in Iowa looks to be heading down the HICP path.
