WILBERFORCE, Ohio
Central State University (CSU), which only seven months ago faced a very real threat of extinction from Ohio legislators, has emerged from a financial and political crisis and is showing strong signs of renewal.
Although obstacles to CSU’s long-term health remain, state higher education officials, students, and university administrators agree that the current trends are reason for optimism. And it also appears that a rebuilding program, spearheaded by Central State’s new president, John Garland, is starting to bear fruit.
Located in southwestern Ohio, Central State is just twenty miles east of Dayton. It is across a state highway from, but not directly connected with, the private Wilberforce University.
“We’re going in an upward direction,” said Tiiara Patton, president of CSU’s student government and a student member of CSU’s board of trustees. “I think we have an administration that is student-oriented, that makes an extra effort to address our concerns. I am very optimistic.
“I know Central State University will be here a long while — long enough for my kids to come here,” she added.
That wasn’t the case in early 1997, when Republican legislators in the Ohio General Assembly considered yanking all state funding from the school, which was in the midst of a financial crisis. By the end of June, the combined efforts of Ohio Gov. George Voinovich, CSU’s board of trustees, a group of African American legislators, and an executive management team that ran the university on an interim basis secured CSU’s $28 million state funding for the next two years.
However, there were strings attached. CSU was forced to give up its prized football program and turn most financial control over to state officials. Also, it must meet nearly two dozen provisions during the next two years in order to continue to receive state funding. The provisions include: maintaining a balanced budget, reducing student-loan default rates, raising admissions standards for entering freshmen gaining institutional reaccreditation, streamlining academic programs, improving student retention, boosting alumni giving, and rebuilding its endowment fund.
Garland — a CSU alumnus hired last summer from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he served as associate vice provost — told state officials on an oversight committee January 15 that Central State is on target with meeting the state’s requirements.
The university has already adopted a balanced budget and has met or exceeded expenditure targets. It’s paying its bills on time. Full-time faculty has been reduced through attrition and layoffs from 120 in the 1995-96 school year to eighty today. And, it is currently hiring staff to replace state officials who had been overseeing the school’s fiscal affairs.
Most important, however, the university’s students seem to be responding to the renewal efforts. Student attrition between fall and winter quarters promised to be much less severe than previous years, when it ranged from 17 to 23 percent, according to Tedd Miller, CSU vice president for enrollment management, who was appointed by Garland. The school had registered 1,044 students for winter, down a handful from the fall-quarter head count of 1,052.
However, Miller cautioned that financial-aid problems could force up to seventy students from the rolls, and final winter-quarter enrollment figures would likely drop below the 1,044 level. The level of student support brought smiles to the faces of Central State officials.
Garland called the retention numbers “absolutely outstanding. It’s a testament to the work we’ve been able to do here.”
CSU officials are busily trying to come up with strategies to keep the students it has and recruit a robust crop of new students next fall. At a January 17 meeting on campus, CSU trustees:
* Established a $750,000 emergency revolving student-loan fund to allow enrolled students to pay living expenses while federal and state student loans are being processed.
* Heard plans for CSU to sponsor a “Scholastic Bowl” on campus in May that would invite as many as 100 high schools from throughout Ohio to compete academically. The winning school would be awarded scholarships.
* Learned of student recruitment plans that will use alumni chapters, faculty members, and a new public relations committee “to get the word out that Central State University is alive and well,” as Miller puts it.
* Heard a report that stated that between October 1 and January 18, the university had raised $62,000 from alumni donations, which Garland said showed “a clear indication of support for this board and this administration.”
Garland told state officials he would like to explore the possibility of restoring football at the school as part of an overall student-recruitment effort. The school has a rich football tradition and won the National Association of intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) championship in 1990, 1992, and 1995. But the NAIA sanctioned the university’s football and baseball programs a year ago for using ineligible players.
Legislators prohibited football because they felt the university had neglected other financial needs, in particular in the school’s dormitories and cafeterias, while supporting the athletic program. Garland’s support for football prompted a swift retort from State Sen. Eugene Watts, a Republican from the Columbus area who has been CSU’s most outspoken critic in the legislature.
“He [Garland] should be focusing his attention on the academic resurrection and financial resurrection of Central State,” Watts told the Associated Press. “We don’t want him worrying for one second about a football program. He doesn’t have enough time in the day to do that.”
Garland said his mentioning of football did not reflect a desire to give its return a high priority. The school’s board of trustees was deeply divided on the issue when they last discussed it in 1997.
There are other challenges ahead for the university as well. An evaluation team from the North Central Accrediting Association will visit in May, and gaining reaccreditation is essential for CSU’s future. Some individual academic programs, including manufacturing engineering and chemistry, have encountered problems in accreditation, although Garland said he is optimistic the university’s responses to the accrediting bodies will resolve those problems.
Legal battles are also looming. Trustees voted January 17 to take legal action against CSU’s former president, Dr. Arthur E. Thomas. They are seeking repayment of nearly $102,000 of a 1995 severance package that state auditors concluded was improper.
Also, a state audit of CSU’s administration of federal grants and other matters is due for release later this year. And a local county prosecutor is conducting a criminal investigation of CSU following an Ohio inspector general’s probe that uncovered what was called “numerous instances of fraud, waste, and abuse” during the mid-1990s –prior to the arrival of the current board of trustees and of Garland.
Board of Trustees Chairman Fred Ransier and other board members — who were appointed en masse by Voinovich after the governor forced out the previous board in 19.96 — have expressed frustration over the perception that CSU is rooted in the past, whereas they are moving forward. Yet state officials and legislators often lump current CSU board members and officials together with previous crises and improprieties with which they had nothing to do.
“We’ve fought that battle for a year and a half, and it’s got to end,” Ransier said. “We are not the problem. We are here to be the solution to the problem.”
RELATED ARTICLE: Community Colleges To Take Center Stage At ACE Conference
WASHINGTON — In what could be considered a recognition of the importance of community colleges within the higher education community, a major address at the upcoming American Council of Education (ACE) conference will be given by the chancellor of Arizona’s Maricopa County Community College, Dr. Paul A. Elsner.
“I would like to think that it represents the coming of age of community colleges,” Elsner said of the fact that he is delivering a major address to the national conference of the organization that is considered to speak for all of higher education.
Elsner said he will be speaking about the difficulties community colleges have in building a sense of community and how that affects the educational process.
“Much of what we do is tied to satisfying the adult learner who is working,” Elsner said, describing the typical community college student as “in a hurry and on the run.”
According to Elsner, one of the reasons community colleges are being recognized as an essential part of the higher education continuum is that more four-year college students are coming from community colleges.
This, coupled with the fact that 48 percent of African American college students, 56 percent of Hispanic students, and 85 percent of Native American students attend community colleges, makes community colleges a potent force in the higher education world, Elsner said.
The theme of the ACE conference, which will be held in San Francisco in early February, is “Freedom and Responsibility,” with an emphasis on what higher education can do to build a free and responsible campus.
Other speakers at the conference include sociologist Robert Bellah, professor emeritus at University of California Berkeley, and Howard Fuller, director of the institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University. Fuller, former superintendent of schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will speak on the need for higher education and the K-12 education community to work together.
“I’m going to be talking about why there needs to be a radical change in how we approach K-12 education in this country,” Fuller said, “particularly for poor children of color, and what role higher education has in trying to make that happen.”
ACE has drafted a statement on the need for diversity in higher education that has been signed by twenty-nine higher education organizations. However, the decision whether to release it by the time of the conference had not yet been made two weeks before the conference. According to someone who has seen the statement, it makes no reference to affirmative action, but does speak strongly on the educational benefits of having a diverse faculty and student body.
At press time, President Bill Clinton had not yet confirmed whether he would speak at the conference, But he has spoken at previous conferences, and was expected to speak again this year.
Mark Fisher covers higher education for the Dayton Daily News.
COPYRIGHT 1998 Cox, Matthews & Associates
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Comment
Name *
Email *
Website
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.