wfn.org | Sheldon Jackson seeks 1 year of borrowed time

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

Note #6553 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

7-June-2001
01197

Sheldon Jackson seeks 1 year of borrowed time

College won't begin repaying life-saving $490,000 loan until 2003

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Despite making progress toward financial stability, historic
Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, AK, needs more time to begin repaying a
loan that helped keep its doors open.

	On Wednesday, the National Ministries Division Committee (NMDC) of the
Presbyterian Church (USA) unanimously approved a recommendation to give
Sheldon Jackson officials an additional year to begin repaying the $490,000
loan it received in the fall of 1999. Around that time, officials feared
they would be forced to shut down the financially strapped institution,
which is named after a legendary Presbyterian missionary.

	The loan for the four-year liberal arts college was approved by the
executive committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC), to which college
officials had applied for financial assistance. The NMDC recommendation now
goes to the Mission Support Services Committee, then to the full GAC, which
is meeting here.

	Under the new agreement, Sheldon Jackson officials would start repaying the
loan with a $100,000 payment in 2003 rather than 2002. Two other scheduled
payments, of $100,000 in 2003 and $290,000 in 2004, would also be moved back
one year.

	The school intended to use funds from a land sale to begin repaying the
loan. When the transaction did not go through, it put the school in a
financial dilemma, the committee was told by Duncan Ferguson, coordinator of
the denomination's Office of Higher Education.

	"Delaying repayment allows the school time to begin to see the benefits of
the changes put in motion by the consulting firm, Growth Design," Ferguson
said, referring to a company that has helped the school rebound from its
financial woes. "Sheldon Jackson expects to be in a stronger financial
position through increased enrollment, improved fund-raising and
infrastructure."

	Ferguson later told the Mission Support Services committee, which also
approved the one-year postponement, that Sheldon Jackson college "isn't
seeking this delay out of a sense of desperation; it's just that it would
help them in their timing if they had this extra year."
He said the college is in much better shape, financially: "This is a whole
different world from a year ago."

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