Prometheus 6   

A piece of history looks to be on its death bed

Beleaguered Black College Loses Its Chief
By GREG WINTER

After losing the battle to win back his institution's accreditation, the president of Morris Brown College has abruptly resigned, leaving its board of trustees vowing to keep the 122-year-old college open, despite being a bit uncertain as to how.

"We don't plan to close the school," said Bishop Frank C. Cummings, the chairman of the board at Morris Brown, in Atlanta. "It is our desire to bring the school back on line, and make it better than it ever was."

Bishop Cummings said the board had convened a committee to figure out how to go forward, but had not made any formal proposals.

Dr. Charles E. Taylor, the president who had pledged to pull the college back from the brink of insolvency or quit if he failed, stepped down after seven months on Tuesday, a week after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools refused to reinstate Morris Brown's accreditation on appeal.

That ruling, essentially a restatement of the association's decision to revoke the college's accreditation last December for fiscal instability and faulty leadership, leaves Morris Brown ineligible for federal financial aid, the source of up to 70 percent of its revenue.

Despite being stripped of its accreditation and scrambling to pay up to $27 million in debts, the college is under no obligation to close. Nonetheless, nearly half of the 2,500 students who attended it had already left before the current semester, transferring to public universities and other historically black colleges.

Now that Morris Brown has lost its appeal, it can no longer receive money from the United Negro College Fund, which has given it more than $25 million in the last decade. Nor can its remaining students receive federal grants and loans, a near assurance of a second exodus that may make it harder for the college to become financially sound, and, subsequently, regain its accreditation.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/17/2003 11:37:28 AM |