Paine Formally Removed from SACS-COC Membership
Paine College has officially been removed from membership with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, following a final ruling from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on the school’s appeal for a temporary stay of its revocation in 2016.
The accrediting agency announced the formal removal last week, ending a four-year legal battle between the organization and the embattled private HBCU after its membership was initially terminated after years of non-compliance with financial and executive oversight standards.
Paine is accredited under candidate status by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, and eligible for students to receive federal financial aid and institutional disbursements from the U.S. Department of Education.
The question for schools like Paine and others which will face new levels of financial strife in the continuing impact of COVID-19 pandemic response is if the legal costs of staying federally recognized are worth the prospects of operating as a standalone campus? While no one could have predicted a global virus upending the entire industry of higher education, everyone could have predicted that Paine would either fold or edge towards virtual non-existence in the shadows of a growing PWI literally across the street.
Is it time for schools like Paine, Bennett College, and others to formally and aggressively gather information on possible mergers with other HBCUs? Black colleges are already reeling from the unknowns of how the coronavirus will impact enrollment and operations — does the sector really need a collection of headlines this fall or next spring about the unavoidable closure of campuses to complicate its fight?
Legendary Sportscaster Ron Pinkney Dies
Morgan State College alumnus and iconic black college football broadcaster Ron Pinkney died last week in Hampton, Va. He was 85.
Pinkney was the first African American to do play-by-play for a nationally televised sports contest and became a golden voice for sports for Morgan, Grambling State University, Hampton University, and several historically black college conference tournaments and championships over his 45 years in broadcasting.
Why is Texas Southern Still Attacking Austin Lane?
A new report of Texas Southern University’s enrollment practices depicts former president Austin Lane as an ineffective leader and the university’s board as petty and vindictive.
The Texas Tribune broke the story last week on TSU admitting thousands of students who didn’t meet admissions qualifications, many of those students receiving more than $2 million in scholarship awards, and how the institution lost much of its record-breaking attendance gains between 2017 and 2019.
A significant number of freshman students — 4,141 of 8,273— were also admitted despite not meeting academic requirements and were instead accepted “based upon a variety of undocumented scenarios” during those years. The university enrolls about 10,000 students, with a freshman class of around 2,000. Many of the underqualified students are no longer enrolled at Texas Southern, the summary says.
The full report, also reviewed by The Texas Tribune, says an anonymous complaint was sent to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in November 2018, alleging that the university, one of the country’s largest historically black colleges, “tried to increase enrollment by encouraging staff to admit all candidates, regardless of whether the candidate met the university’s academic admissions criteria.”
A report like this reaching the media suggests that it was leaked by a high-level executive or through an executive proxy. And while the numbers may be troubling because of the excessive details of scholarships and dropouts, the practice of opening the gates to big numbers of students, regardless of readiness, is common among black colleges facing revenue issues and particularly those under first-time presidents looking to build their names as institutional change agents.
But the leak appears disingenuous on several levels. First, it comes a day before Lane was named the new chancellor of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, which was just months after his ouster from TSU over ethics and finance concerns. His removal created leaks, protests, legal responses from his lawyers, and ended with a hefty cash settlement and an acknowledgment from the board that he did nothing wrong.
It begs the question — why is Texas Southern trying so hard to trash a reputation it bolstered with its cash payout and public clearing of wrongdoing? If the board thought that it was justified in dismissing him, why lobby the court of public opinion in an already defeated effort?
Lane has a new job, a sitting president has come out and tampered with TSU’s executive search prospects because of the board’s messiness, and now the board generates another article seeking to discredit enrollment practices it seemingly accepted three years ago? What is the point to prove now — that the former president is as bad as you thought he was but weren’t willing to fight against paying him for his bad tenure?
Spelman President Calls for Partnership Between Atlanta University Center, Police Department
Viral video of a Spelman College student and former Morehouse College student being violently detained during protests over the weekend in Atlanta has spurred a call for collaboration from Spelman’s president.
Mary Schmidt Campbell has issued a call for leaders from the Atlanta University Center and the Atlanta Police Department to collaborate on future initiatives to spur fewer incidents of violence between police officers and residents. In a letter written to the campus community yesterday, Campbell called the incident an “opportunity for leadership.”
What the protesters are protesting is exactly this kind of unacceptable behavior — and that is the disregard, disrespect and aggression that seems to make stalking Black citizens, rather than protecting them, the goal of law enforcement.
To say, “this has got to stop” would be tantamount to shouting into the wind. We have said “this has got to stop” too many times. We need to take steps in the coming days, weeks, months and years to change.
