Cross also urged the public to remember what had been accomplished during her tenure as president, including a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, an increase in the number of tenured faculty and student retention rates.
The school's new president Dr. Charles Taylor and other school officials are working on a financial recovery plan for the school that could include tuition increases, job cuts and cutbacks in athletics and other programs.
In addition, Morris Brown College alumni pledged $2.5 million early this month to help pull the struggling school out of its $23 million debt.
Alumni will try to raise $50 million over the next year, said Alumni Association President Deloris Saunders.
"This is no glib commitment," Saunders says. "This is a serious commitment to Morris Brown."
Local ministers and politicians vowed the 117-year-old school wouldn't close. "Morris Brown will not close, it will not stop," said Michael Julian Bond, deputy director of the Atlanta NAACP.
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