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5-March-1997 
97114 
 
                  Historically Black Presbyterian 
                  Colleges Struggle For Survival 
 
                         by Julian Shipp  
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Historically black colleges affiliated with the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are undergoing a best-of-times, worst-of-times 
existence -- witnessed Feb. 24-25 by National Ministries Division (NMD) 
officials during fact-finding tours to Knoxville College in Tennessee and 
Barber-Scotia College and Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina. 
 
     Heading the tour was NMD director the Rev. Curtis A. Kearns Jr. He was 
accompanied by the Rev. Mary Newbern-Williams, the NMD's associate for 
racial ethnic schools and colleges and this Presbyterian News Service 
reporter. 
 
     There are eight racial-ethnic schools and colleges that are either 
owned by and/or receive funding from the PC(USA). They are Barber-Scotia 
College, Concord, N.C.;  Cook College and Theological School, Tempe, Ariz.; 
Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn.; Mary Holmes College, West Point, 
Miss.; Menaul School, Albuquerque, N.M.; Presbyterian Pan American School, 
Kingsville, Texas; Sheldon Jackson College, Sitka, Alaska; and Stillman 
College, Tuscaloosa, Ala. Although founded in 1867 by the Presbyterian 
Church, Johnson C. Smith University does not receive financial assistance 
from the denomination. 
 
     Collectively, these schools enroll more than 5,000 students on 
campuses valued in excess of $95 million.  Their combined budgets total 
more than $53 million, of which approximately 4 percent comes from 
donations. According to Kearns, the schools  receive between $250,000 and 
$300,000 annually from the Christmas Joy Offering and restricted funds 
(wills and bequests).  
 
                 The crisis at Knoxville College 
 
     The situation is grave indeed at Knoxville College, founded in 1875 by 
what was then the United Presbyterian Church of North America. Dr. Roland 
A. Harris Jr., acting president, said the Southern Association of Colleges 
and Schools (SACS) has decided to withdraw  the school's accreditation 
after years of financial instability. 
 
     The college has appealed the decision and awaits a response that is 
expected March 24, when college leaders meet with the SACS board for a 
hearing. The school successfully appealed a similar SACS recommendation in 
1985.  A loss of accreditation has severe repercussions, including 
crippling a college's ability to seek federal funds for financial aid. 
According to Harris, more than 90 percent of the school's 336 students 
receive some form of financial assistance. 
 
     "We think some things were stacked against us in terms of the SACS 
decision," Harris told the Presbyterian News Service. "For instance, a peer 
group last December recommended that the college be placed on probation, 
not lose its accreditation. I think there was tremendous improvement in the 
financial structure last year that I thought SACS would take into 
consideration." 
      
     Nonetheless, crucial issues facing the college, some of which were 
cited by SACS in their decision, include 
 
     *    a debt of $3 million explained as "Knoxville in debt to itself." 
          There are not a lot of creditors the college owes, but it has 
          difficulty funding its operations. 
     *    planning and evaluation deficiencies -- cited by SACS as being 
          related to scholastic achievement, the college library, student 
          publications and several administrative processes. 
     *    financial aid problems. The financial aid office has undergone 
          extreme difficulty, with the previous director being terminated 
          after SACS cited the college for misappropriation of student loan 
          funds with USA Funds (an educational loan guarantor). The college 
          is also owed several hundreds thousand dollars in outstanding 
          student loans. 
 
     Another disturbing sight  is the 51-acre Morristown campus, purchased 
several years ago by Knoxville College but unused since it closed in 1995. 
Although plans are under way to sell the campus, which is assessed at $4.8 
million, the property, with 22 vacant buildings, serves as a painful 
reminder of the lost potential that has become synonymous with the growing 
inability of African Americans to translate educational achievement into 
economic clout. 
 
     "It really breaks my heart to see this place like this, it's such a 
shame when you consider all the sacrifices and contributions our ancestors 
made," Newburn-Williams said.  
 
     "If Knoxville College is so consumed with basic survival, how can it 
prepare students for higher education," Kearns said. "In a high-tech world, 
if you don't have the technology you are going to be shut out, and I fear 
that our historically black colleges that are unable to stay in step 
technologically will wither on the vine." 
 
     Though students and faculty were disheartened by the news (nearly 75 
students dropped out after the SACS decision was announced), Knoxville 
College continues to hold classes and recruit students pending the outcome 
of the appeal. Moreover, the college is asking community supporters for 
additional help with its College Fund and annual fund-raisers. 
 
     Dr. J. Harvey Gillespie, vice president for institutional advancement 
at Knoxville College, said that as of  June 1996 the school had a budget 
surplus of roughly $200,000.  He said it was achieved by trimming expenses, 
including closing the Morristown campus, reducing faculty/staff salaries 
and taking other extreme cost-cutting measures. 
           
     In addition to obtaining additional funding, Gillespie said, what 
Knoxville College most needs now is "a sound policy of vision and 
leadership."  
 
     "We have not yet adopted a program that says,  This is how Knoxville 
College will look in the year 2000 and [this is] how we are going to be 
there,'" Gillespie said.  "We have been in a crisis mode before and have 
responded. And we are responding again. 
 
     "Why? Primarily because the [Knoxville College] board has failed to 
work out why a plan of action is needed," Gillespie said. "There is no 
follow-up and no one who is looking to see that things are being carried 
out. The president has never been given the full support of the board and 
that makes it hard to articulate the school's presence in the world."    
      
     Commenting on institutional advancement, Gillespie said his office is 
trying to regain the confidence of the college's alumni and friends through 
a mailed appeal.  He said there are "some" college alumni chapters across 
the country, but most of them need to be reactivated. There are more than 
6,000 contacts on the list. 
 
     Gillespie said a guide for writing proposals for government funding is 
being developed, a telethon fund-raising campaign is being planned and a 
think tank of people in the Knoxville community to discuss what can be done 
to promote the college and recruit more students is being organized. 
      
     "We're building." Gillespie said. 
 
               Better news at Barber-Scotia College 
 
     After a two-and-a-half-year struggle, Barber-Scotia College, a 
historically black Presbyterian college in Concord, N.C., has regained good 
standing with SACS. The 129-year-old school had been placed on probation 
for a year, following 18 months of warning, due to  ballooning debt that at 
one point approached $3 million. 
 
     The sanctions could have cost the school its accreditation, which 
would have meant losing the federal grants and scholarships that help it 
stay open. In 1994, both the National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People (NAACP) and the owner of  the Charlotte Hornets professional 
basketball team pitched in to help raise money for the beleaguered college. 
 
     Presbyterian Church officials also put college administrators in touch 
with potential donors. Now Barber-Scotia's president, Dr. Sammie Potts, 
says the debt is down to $1.8 million, and he hopes to eliminate it 
entirely within the next three years. 
 
     To do that, the college launched its first-ever capital campaign Feb. 
24.   
 
     Called "A New Era of Distinction," the $4.7 million campaign will run 
through 2002.  The college will use the money for capital improvement, 
scholarships, technology acquisitions and academic enhancement. 
 
     One of the pace-setting organizations in the greater Charlotte area, 
Philip Morris, U.S.A., has already pledged a gift of $110,000. Moreover, 
the college's alumni have promised to give $250,000 to the fund, of which 
more than $68,000 is "already in hand," according to Potts. 
 
     "The administration of Barber-Scotia College will show that it is up 
to the task of advancing Barber-Scotia College to one of the nation's most 
proud and dedicated ... black colleges and universities," Potts said. "This 
administration of Barber-Scotia College will rededicate itself to ensuring 
that Barber-Scotia College remains an active and fully accredited member of 
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools." 
 
     Potts also said the college will endeavor to remain financially sound, 
fiscally prudent, managerially wise, organizationally effective and 
academically excellent. Potts further promised Barber-Scotia College will 
ensure every student has the opportunity to receive a quality education.  
 
     Barber-Scotia College has a current enrollment of 450 students and a 
total of 82 faculty, staff and administrative employees. 
 
        Dynamism and pride at Johnson C. Smith University 
 
     Not all the denomination's black colleges and universities are in 
crisis or in the process of pulling out of a financial tailspin. Founded in 
1867 by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Johnson C.  Smith University in 
Charlotte, N.C., remains one of the nation's oldest and strongest 
historically black colleges and stands as a shimmering manifestation of 
black pride and achievement. 
 
     Under the guidance of its president, Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy, the 
university continues to prepare the leaders of the next century while 
honoring the traditions and culture upon which the nation's historically 
black colleges were conceived and nurtured. 
 
     According to information provided by Yancy, Johnson C. Smith 
University has a total of 1,426 students, its highest enrollment since 
1978.  The institution has an operating budget of $22 million and in 1996 
distributed $6.9 million in financial aid (including state, federal, and 
college loans and grants).  
 
     But how has Johnson C. Smith been able to survive and thrive when 
neighboring institutions are seemingly on the verge of collapse? One of 
the key ingredients to the university's success, Yancy said, is keeping 
alumni informed and utilizing their talents and resources. 
 
     "Most of our schools do not have a good alumni database," Yancy said. 
"Most of the alumni offices at most colleges and universities were the last 
to go through the information age, but we know you can't raise money 
sitting in an office. 
 
     "Most folks think they have to give a lot, but the percentage of 
givers is more important than the number of givers," Yancy said. "A lot of 
folks are deterred from giving because they think they are going to see 
their name and the amount they donated in print." 
 
     Getting its students ready for the future through technological 
investments also remains a university strength. For example, the 
university's new technology center, for which ground was broken in the 
spring of 1996, will house laboratories, research offices, a 
teleconferencing hall, a technical library, an auditorium and classrooms. 
According to university officials, the center is designed and will be 
equipped to offer students cutting-edge training on rapidly advancing 
technologies, encourage and increase student and faculty research projects 
and serve the Charlotte metropolitan business community in support of 
research and training. 
 
     Yancy said the university has been on the Internet since 1994 and 
recently spent an estimated $2 million installing fiberoptic cable and 
technology on campus. 
 
     "In order to be competitive and recruit, you have to be able to 
provide [students] those things which they had in middle and high school 
and are not about to do without in college," Yancy said. "We have to be 
able to provide a support system so that they can come out of here with a 
meaningful college education." 
 
                  Tough questions for the future 
 
     In the years to come, Presbyterian Church officials will undoubtedly 
have some tough issues to face regarding the denomination's racial-ethnic 
schools and colleges. For example, Potts directly credited the PC(USA) with 
keeping Barber-Scotia financially afloat over the years. 
 
     "Our survival has been primarily due to the Presbyterian Church and 
the people in the pews," Potts said. "People give to people and, 
admittedly, we have not done the best job of leadership in the past." 
 
     But as the denomination's financial resources decline, church leaders 
may no longer be able to maintain the current amount of funding for its 
schools and universities.  "I'm not sure how well we're going to be able to 
maintain the schools in the future," Harris said frankly. "I think that the 
historically black schools are going to lose out eventually to larger 
public universities and colleges.  As African Americans we don't have much 
historically. And if we lose our colleges and loose the [spiritual strength 
and identity provided by the] church, we may not have anything left." 
 
     College and church leaders face an additional threat from the fact 
that there are now more African American men nationwide in prison than in 
college. According to the PC(USA) Office of Higher Education, the average 
cost of incarceration for one year exceeds $20,000 per prisoner. That same 
$20,000, when coupled with additional financial aid programs, would provide 
four years of education for two students at one of the church's 
racial-ethnic institutions. 
 
     Bob Suddreth, senior vice president of Wachovia Bank of North 
Carolina, N.A., and a member of the Johnson C. Smith University Board of 
Visitors, said historically black colleges and universities comprise only 3 
percent of America's higher education institutions. However, they enroll 16 
percent of the nation's black college students and graduate 30 percent of 
all black students who earn a bachelor's degree. 
     Additionally, Suddreth said, historically black colleges and 
universities have graduated 75 percent of blacks who hold Ph.D.'s, 85 
percent of black medical doctors, 46 percent of black business executives, 
50 percent of black engineers, 75 percent of all black military officers 
and 80 percent of black federal judges. 
     "I know firsthand what these schools can do," Suddreth said. "I was 
one of the poor underachievers they took under their wings at North 
Carolina Central University with a struggling score on the  Scholastic 
Aptitude Test of  800. Later, when I went on to Babcock Graduate School at 
Wake Forest University for my M.B.A., I was the only African American in my 
class. But I'm proud to say that I finished at the top of my class."   
     Kearns urged the college presidents to contact officials in the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation, an institution through which 
Presbyterians can provide financial support for the church and its missions 
through gifts, bequests and deferred giving. 
     "Given their current status, I think all of our Presbyterian black 
colleges should be at the top of the list of donations of dollars from 
people," Kearns said. "I think the denomination should take whatever 
measures it can to affirm and continue  to support our racial ethnic 
schools and colleges." 
     Newbern-Williams said Presbyterians who want to help Knoxville 
College, Barber-Scotia College or any of the denomination's other 
racial-ethnic schools and colleges through an Extra Commitment Offering can 
contact her office at (502)569-5646 for more information. 

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 

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