A report submitted in May to the Council on Chiropractic Education shows Life students trailed behind the national average in each section of the National Board Part I exam administered in spring 2001. The exam is the first of four students must pass to obtain a license to practice.

This week, the council revoked accreditation of Life's chiropractic program, meaning graduates will not be able to take the exams unless the university wins an appeal of the council's decision.

Some students and administrators have complained the revocation is unjust and describe it as politically motivated because Life espouses a conservative philosophy of chiropractic, one that follows the theory that the body has an inherent ability to heal itself once spinal interferences are corrected.

Others, including graduates and faculty, say the council's unprecedented action to revoke accreditation was clearly based on academic problems.

Linda Denham, a past president of the Georgia Board of Chiropractic Examiners, pointed to the below-average passing rates of students on the national exams. "All you have to do is look at the numbers," she said. "The numbers don't lie. The numbers don't have a philosophy."

In the anatomy portion of the exam, 83 percent of Life students passed on a first attempt, 7 percent below the national mean. Students also trailed behind their peers in the physiology, chemistry, pathology and public health portions, the report shows.

University officials provided the data to the accrediting agency as part of a recommendation to improve its planning and assessment strategies.

The university told the accrediting council it had developed new goals for its graduates. One such goal, for example, would require that within five years students reach or exceed the national mean on the board exam that covers basic sciences.

To accomplish this, the university told the accrediting agency it had strengthened the requirements for passing basic science courses. Students must now receive a "C" or better. And students must now pass both the lab and lecture portion of all classes. In addition, classroom and lab hours were added to various classes.

"These changes in the basic sciences division have been some of the most sweeping changes made in recent years," the university's report said. "The effects of these changes have not had a chance to be felt yet."

The response was one of dozens the university made to criticisms of the accrediting council aimed at its academics.

The council also critiqued the number and stability of faculty in the chiropractic program, and of chiropractors supervising students in the university's public clinics.

Of the clinic supervision, the site team that visited the university in April concluded that "the student-to-faculty ratio is far too high to effectively provide quality patient care and simultaneously mentor and assess a student's progress through the clinical training portion of the program."

The university responded by saying it was "aggressively attempting" to fill 16 open clinic faculty positions, and had asked other faculty for recruiting suggestions.

Three weeks after it received the university's 42-page response to its concerns, the Council on Chiropractic Education revoked the accreditation of Life's chiropractic program.

The decision came a year after the university's program was placed on probation.

President and founder Sid Williams, who plans to step down as president in March, said this week the loss of accreditation was unexpected. He defended his program and the education of students as "superior."

Denham, a Cartersville chiropractor, said Williams had more than enough time to respond to the chiropractic council.

"They want to hear what he's done," she said. "The CCE would not have revoked their accreditation had they not felt very strongly about this. This is a drastic measure. I think Dr. Williams just didn't think they'd do it."