wfn.org | GAC Turns Down Funding Request from Sheldon Jackson College

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

6-October-1999 
99335 
 
    GAC Turns Down Funding Request 
    from Sheldon Jackson College 
 
    Presbyterian College Could Be Forced to Close Next Year 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -The General Assembly Council (GAC) has rejected an 
appeal from Sheldon Jackson College for $2 million in emergency funding. 
The financially troubled institution in Sitka, Alaska, is named for a 
legendary Presbyterian missionary. 
 
    Council members voted unanimously Sept. 25 to approve a recommendation 
against further funding of Sheldon Jackson, which said it needs the money 
to implement new programming, boost enrollment and put the institution on 
stable financial footing. School officials also have been seeking money 
from other sources and discussing the idea of merging with another 
institution to avoid closing its doors next spring. 
 
    "In our response to them, we are essentially saying that, while we care 
deeply and profoundly about its tradition, and celebrate its marvelous 
history ... we are simply unable, given our limited resources, to respond 
positively to that request for $2 million," said Duncan Ferguson, 
coordinator for the denomination's office of higher education. 
 
    "We are saying that we will continue to support that (school) in every 
possible way through current resources, which we have set aside," Ferguson 
said shortly before the council voted on the recommendation of the National 
Ministries Division (NMD). 
 
    The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) adds about $320,000 a year to the 
coffers of Sheldon Jackson with money from the denomination's Christmas Joy 
offering. "There also are various restricted accounts that we can use for 
mission to help Sheldon Jackson, and whatever emergency funds we have 
available," Ferguson said, adding that the church recently sent the college 
$20,000 to help it get over a "little hump." 
 
    Sheldon Jackson College, which now has about 275 full- and part-time 
students, has served the native people of Alaska since its founding in 1878 
as a training center for Tlingit Indians. It is named after pioneering 
Presbyterian mission worker Sheldon Jackson, who logged nearly 30,000 miles 
a year traveling across the country, often by dogsled, in the mid-1800s, 
and established hundreds of churches and schools - and even a newspaper. 
 
    "Sheldon Jackson is about as close as you get to a saint in the 
Presbyterian Church," said the Rev. Bill Chapman, partnership chair for 
NMD. 
 
    Something substantial must happen soon if the 120-year-old college, 
touted as Alaska's oldest continuous educational institution, is to survive 
- otherwise, President David Meekhof will be forced to recommend in 
December that the board of trustees approve closing the college at the 
conclusion of the spring semester next May. 
 
    "We're very much aware that either we need some major gifts within the 
next three months, or we'll need a definite commitment to move toward some 
form of merger of administrative functions," Meekhof said, "or we're going 
to have to start an orderly process of looking toward closure. Those are 
the alternatives before us." 
 
    Meekhof declined to name schools Sheldon Jackson has communicated with 
about a merger, which he believes could save the school about $5,000 a year 
by consolidating administrative staffs with a partner institution. 
 
    "We can imagine that we would be the Sheldon Jackson campus of whatever 
other institution we relate to, and would maintain our identity as the 
Sheldon Jackson campus," Meekhof said. 
 
    Ferguson said Sheldon Jackson will continue holding merger discussions 
with Alaska Pacific University, a private Methodist-affiliated liberal arts 
college in Anchorage, Alaska; the state-operated University of Alaska 
system, which has a campus in Sitka; and Whitworth College in Spokane, 
Washington. 
 
    But finding a partner may not be easy. 
 
    "I would say the odds are against it at this point," said Doug North, 
president of Alaska Pacific University, the only other four-year private 
college in Alaska. "I'd say right now it's about 30-70, but that's without 
real information." 
 
     University of Alaska officials said no discussions are taking place 
between the schools. 
 
    "I don't know at what level those conversations have been going on, 
other than just locally here, which have not really been of any substance," 
said John Carnegie, director of the University of Alaska's Sitka campus. 
"They've been more investigatory, in terms of how can we help and what can 
happen?" 
 
    Scott Foster, public relations director for the University of Alaska 
Southeast in Juneau, which includes the Sitka campus, mirrored his 
colleague's comments: "As far as the University of Alaska Southeast is 
concerned, there have not been any negotiations, and we're not aware of any 
negotiations under way in terms of a partnership or a merger." 
 
    Greg Orwig, communications director of Whitworth College, said he and 
president William Robinson were unaware of any current discussions with 
Sheldon Jackson. 
 
    Meekhof said years of operating the institution with shaky cash 
reserves and negligible endowments is partly to blame for bringing the 
college "to the point where our income from student tuition and fees simply 
is not adequate to meet the needs." 
 
    He said Sheldon Jackson must have 300 full-time students to be viable 
financially, and expanding the current program offerings is paramount in 
obtaining that level of enrollment. 
 
    "We need to develop programs, and that takes about one million of the 
dollars we asked for ... and (for) enlarging the programs we already have," 
Meekhof said. "We need the other monies to enlarge our science areas, which 
basically are in the areas of ecological systems and management." 
 
    He said the college raises an annual fund of more than $2.5 million, 
which he called "commendable" for a college with fewer than 200 full-time 
students." 
 
    Unforeseen financial challenges are also a factor in Sheldon Jackson's 
woes. One example is $300,000 to $400,000 of expenses to add a boiler 
system, which was necessary because the city announced recently that it 
plans to close a garbage incinerator on the campus - a source, for 20 
years, of free heat for the college. 
 
    "It's those cash needs that have put us into a very difficult situation 
right now," Meekhof said. "My belief is that, if in three years we could 
have a solid 300(-member) student body, we could have a cash reserve of $1 
million and an endowment that's growing 10 percent a year. If we could 
accomplish those things, we are a viable college." 

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