An anonymous donor has pledged $2.5 million to help financially strapped LeMoyne-Owens College meet an end-of-the-month deadline to pay its operating expenses, but with one catch: All of the board trustees at the historically Black college in Memphis have to resign. The caveat applies to more than 30 board members, excluding those representing alumni and churches.
“We haven’t really gotten all of the details regarding the grant yet,” says Sheila Fleming-Hunter, the college’s senior vice president. “But we are excited about it and grateful for the anonymous donor as we look forward to our end of the year requirements for our accreditation.”
If the trustees agree to relinquish their positions, the anonymous donor will give $1.5 million to the college by June 30, to be followed with another $1 million grant.
Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, a member of the school’s board of trustees, made the announcement of the donation and its condition Friday.
“We must restore confidence in the minds of the corporations, foundations and citizens that the mission of this college is still legitimate,” Herenton said.
The school has until June 30 to raise $1 million to cover its operating costs. LeMoyne-Owens has only raised about half that amount through several fundraising events. Desperate to save the school, Herenton even offered to box former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, who so far has not responded to the challenge.
If LeMoyne-Owens does not meet its end of the month deadline, its accreditation will be in jeopardy. If it loses its accreditation, it will lose federal funding, which will be disastrous to its students, 90 percent of whom receive financial aid.
Herenton and board chair Robert Lipscomb have both said they will resign their seats. Now it’s up to the rest of the board to either do the same or come up with a strategy to raise the funds in a few days. Several trustees did not return calls to Diverse seeking comment.
The members of the board have not been asked to officially resign. However, in a specially called meeting last week, the trustees agreed that drastic changes were in order, according to an Associated Press article. Also last week, the college’s president, James Wingate resigned effective Sept. 1, mainly due to the school fundraising woes and its resulting $6 million debt.
On a brighter note, LeMoyne-Owen did award baccalaureate degrees to 150 graduating seniors in late May, which represented one of its largest graduating classes in recent years. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was the commencement’s keynote speaker.
LeMoyne-Owen is a private, historically Black Christian liberal arts institution. The American Missionary Association established the school in 1862 as an elementary school for freedmen and runaway slaves in Shiloh, Tenn. It moved to Memphis the next year. Following the withdrawal of federal troops from the city in 1866, it was destroyed by fire in race riots. Lincoln Chapel, as it was known then, reopened in 1867 with 150 students and six teachers, but it was then plagued with financial troubles. In 1870, Dr. Francis J. LeMoyne, a Pennsylvania doctor and member of the American Missionary Association, donated $20,000 to the school, which was renamed LeMoyne Normal and Commercial School in his honor.
The school became a junior college in 1924 and a four-year college six years later. In 1968, it merged with S.A. Owen Junior College, which had a shared purpose of providing career training through a liberal arts education in a Christian setting, and took on its current name.
The college has produced a legion of Black leaders over the years, including Herenton and Benjamin Hooks, the NAACP’s executive director from 1977 to 1992.
In the last decade or so, the college has seen its enrollment plummet, its debt rise and a number of presidents come and go. In December, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools — the region’s accrediting group — placed it on probation because of its monetary predicament.
— By Ibram Rogers
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Reader comments on this story: |
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There are currently 5 reader comments on this story: |
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“Request for HBCU Board Resignations” I pray for the day that we wake up and begin to recognize the correlation between our value system, our character, our education, and true success in life. I pray for the day that I open my email and see an article that details the skyrocketing graduation rate of African Americans from high school, as well as college. I pray for the day that I am able to read about the millions of dollars that are flooding into the HBCU’s due to the overwhelming support of its alumni and friends. I just pray. |
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“Donor ousts Board of Trustees” Bravo, private donor…. |
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“remove ineffective leaders” -anonymous |
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“Hostage of an institution” tion through the anonymous donor ONLY IF the entire Board resigns. I read the 4 comments indicating their sorrow and disappointment with the failure of Board leadership, one directly castigating “local community who don’t know anything” as well as those leaders who are “pimping the Community.” It would appear the issue which should be raised is two-fold, why the benevolent benefactor who has been knowlegeable all along of the school’s condition, wait to this ninth hour? Second,if the Board accepts they will be perceived as being “honorable leaders” if not, “totally insane.” For those who say “yes” so quick, consider this,”What is the unwritten, unverifiable agenda?” Why did he wait till the ninth hour? To save at any cost?? Makes you go hmmmm? |
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“Beyond the money issue” -Sojo Akomolafe |
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“Leadership Accountability at HBCU’s” When will the AME Church stand up and hold itself responsible for providing a quality education experience for both faculty and students at these schools? How sad it is to note that the General Church only contributes $280,000.00 annually to each of these schools! |
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