08/04/2026
Statement of Institutional Position Regarding MEAC
To Our Students, Faculty, Graduates, Partners, and the Midwifery Community:
There comes a moment in the life of every institution when leadership is measured not by its willingness to endure adversity, but by its willingness to confront it with integrity, courage, and an unwavering commitment to those it serves.
That moment has arrived.
For more than six months, the National College of Midwifery has worked diligently and in good faith to cooperate with the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC). Throughout this process, we consistently chose collaboration over confrontation. We responded to extensive requests, produced substantial documentation, devoted extraordinary institutional resources to compliance efforts, participated in countless meetings and correspondence, and pursued every reasonable opportunity to resolve concerns professionally and constructively.
We did so because we believe accreditation should function as a partnership dedicated to strengthening educational quality, fostering institutional improvement, and protecting students.
Unfortunately, those efforts have not been met with the same spirit.
Instead, our institution has experienced what we believe to be an increasingly unreasonable, inconsistent, and punitive accreditation process. We have faced escalating documentation requests, compressed and impractical deadlines, shifting expectations, and actions that, in our judgment, have departed from the transparency, consistency, and procedural fairness that accredited institutions have a right to expect from their accrediting agency.
Rather than serving as a partner in advancing educational excellence, the accreditation process has, from our perspective, become an obstacle to our ability to serve students and fulfill our educational mission.
The consequences have been significant.
Our institution has been forced to redirect enormous amounts of time, personnel, and financial resources away from students and academic operations in order to respond to an ever-changing compliance environment. We have been required to make difficult operational decisions, reduce staffing, suspend enrollment opportunities in multiple jurisdictions, and navigate unprecedented regulatory uncertainty while continuing to educate and support the students who entrusted us with their futures.
These are burdens that no institution acting in good faith should have been required to bear.
Yet throughout this process, we continued to seek dialogue.
We continued to seek solutions.
We continued to extend good faith.
Unfortunately, good faith cannot exist where accountability exists only for one side.
As institutional leaders, we have a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interests of our students, our nonprofit corporation, our employees, and the public we serve. That obligation requires us to exercise independent judgment—not unquestioning allegiance to any accrediting organization.
Our responsibility is not to protect the reputation of an accrediting agency.
Our responsibility is to protect the students who entrusted us with their education.
When those responsibilities come into conflict, there is no choice to make.
Our students come first.
Always.
The National College of Midwifery has carefully documented our interactions, communications, and the sequence of events that have brought us to this point. We possess substantial documentation supporting our concerns and have retained legal counsel to advise and represent the institution as we evaluate all appropriate legal and regulatory options.
While we will not litigate these matters through public statements, we are fully prepared to present the appropriate evidence to the appropriate regulatory, administrative, or judicial authorities should doing so become necessary to protect our students, our institution, and our legal rights.
We are encouraged that other accredited institutions have come together in an unprecedented show of unity by requesting an independent review of MEAC's governance, protections against retaliation, meaningful governance reform, and a transparent transition process. These collective requests reflect concerns shared across member institutions and underscore the seriousness of the issues confronting the profession.
Our decision to pursue alternative accreditation and regulatory pathways is not an abandonment of accountability or educational excellence.
It is an affirmation of them.
Accreditation exists to strengthen institutions, protect students, and uphold the public trust. When confidence in those functions has been fundamentally shaken, institutional leaders possess not only the authority, but the obligation, to act responsibly. I dedicated two years of volunteer time as a part of the MEAC board and even served as its Board Chair. I know what MEAC should and could be. It's my opinion that MEAC has lost the plot and has endangered schools, students and the CPM credential in ways that are unconscionable and hard to understand. And now with MEAC no longer recognized by the Department of Education, it has caused schools to be out of compliance and in a crunch to find another accreditor in six months. MEAC is operating unrecognized and on their own volition and now there is no one to hold them accountable, except the schools and the midwifery community. I believe MEAC can be saved and brought back in good standing with the right leadership, guidance and expertise.
Accordingly, we will continue to pursue every lawful avenue available to protect our students, preserve this institution, and secure a stable, legally recognized, and sustainable future for the education we provide.
We sincerely hope meaningful reforms occur.
However, hope cannot substitute for action.
We will not permit uncertainty, inconsistent governance, or processes that we believe have failed to provide fairness, transparency, and accountability to determine the future of our students or this institution.
History will judge institutions not by how quietly they endured adversity, but by whether they acted with courage when leadership demanded it.
We have reached that moment.
We choose to stand.
Not out of anger.
Not out of resentment.
But out of an unwavering commitment to justice, integrity, accountability, and the students whose futures depend upon us.
Our resolve is absolute.
Our commitment is unwavering.
We will continue to graduate and serve our students as long as possible.
We will continue to pursue accreditation with a recognized USDE body.
We will stay in communication with our state regulatory and higher education commission.
We will continue to consult with NARM and NACPM as we all try to do what is best for the CPM credential and midwifery at large.
And we will continue to do everything within our legal, ethical, and fiduciary authority to protect this institution, our students, and the future of midwifery education.
Sincerely,
Tanya Smith-Johnson, MS, CPM
President,
National College of Midwifery
