This sure seems like something you should address to them. It is their ballgame and their ball.
Let me share some experience. I don't have an undergraduate degree in art and that prevented me from applying to some graduate art programs. I had a strong portfolio and exhibition record. Some would not have considered me at all without an art degree. Some would have let me in but required me to do some makeup work. So be it. It is their program and they can set the rules as they like. Some programs like UNM appreciate people of diverse backgrounds and prefer a student body of art graduates and people with other backgrounds. They believe that mix creates a richer community for art making. That is the kind of program I believe in and I went to (UNM and then the University of Calgary). Photography in particular is a very social art. If I didn't have an art degree now I would go to a program that appreciated that fact. Where I teach part-time now The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of those schools.
As per Dr. Colberg and Soth (who I also believe does not have a graduate art degree-but I could be wrong). They have made up for that lack of a graduate degree in art through their life's work. Few people reach that kind of academic recognition without going through the program and such people make faculties very interesting and stronger IMO. When I was at UNM Beaumont Newhall ran the PHD program in Photo History. He did not have a PHD, but no one would argue his qualifications. There are quire a few low residency graduate programs out there now and more to come. I'm sure one of them might suite you better.
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