Morris Brown College
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Morris Brown College (MBC) is a four-year, private, coed, liberal arts institution affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is a historically black college (HBCU) located in the West End Community in Atlanta, Georgia. Morris Brown College was one of six institutions of higher learning that comprise the cluster of historically black colleges known as the Atlanta University Center until its accreditation crisis (see below). Lesser known than sibling schools Morehouse and Spelman colleges, Morris Brown was founded by former slaves affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1881. For more than a century, the college took many students from poor backgrounds, large numbers of whom returned to their hometowns as teachers. Most recently, Morris Brown was known for having an open enrollment policy and generous financial aid.
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[edit] Accreditation issue
Morris Brown College was a member of the Atlanta University Center until it lost its accreditation and federal funding in 2002 because of financial mismanagement during the 1998-2002 tenure of Dr. Dolores E. Cross as school president.
Morris Brown was more than $23 million in debt and was on probation in 2001 with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools for shoddy bookkeeping and a shortage of professors with advanced degrees. On December 10, 2002, the Southern Association revoked Morris Brown's accreditation.
The United Negro College Fund also terminated its support for Morris Brown College.[1]
College officials have said the school plans to re-apply for accreditation, a lengthy process that would require the college to be debt-free. Until the school is reaccredited, its students cannot receive federal or state financial aid.
[edit] Uncertain future
Morris Brown College, at one point reduced to an enrollment of just 44 students,[2] continues to operate as a scaled-down version of its former self. In 2004, Dr. Samuel D. Jolley, who had been the school's president from 1993 to 1997, agreed to return to the presidency to help the college's attempts to recover.
The school hoped to have 107 students in the fall of 2006, the same number when the school opened in 1881, but failed to meet even this modest goal. Tuition in the Fall semester of 2006 was $3,500, but without accreditation, students cannot obtain federal or state financial aid for their tuition and other school expenses.
By February 2007, MBC had only 54 students in two degree programs, supported by 7 faculty and staff employees.[3] Despite this, after the sentencing of two former administrators (see below), the chair of the college's board of trustees, William DeVeaux, issued a press release stating the college would move forward and that "This sad chapter in the college's history is now closed."[1]
The school has $22 million in long-term debt and 5 million in short term debt. Both the alumni association and the African Methodist Episcopal Church have pledged to keep the school from closing. As of October 2007, Morris Brown has 72 students and 10 faculty members.[4]
[edit] Criminal scandal
Eighty percent of the school's 2,500 students received financial aid from the federal government, which gave Morris Brown $8 million a year. A federal criminal case against the former president, Dolores Cross, and financial aid director, Mr. Parvesh Singh, proved the pair had embezzled a great deal of that federal aid and diverted it to ineligible college costs, such as personal staff, instead of subsidizing the students whose names were used to obtain the funds.
Cross and Singh were charged in December 2004 in a 34-count indictment that accused them of defrauding the school, the U.S. Department of Education and hundreds of students. The pair, who first worked together at a college in Chicago, were convicted of using the names of hundreds of unwitting students, ex-students, and people who were never students there at all[5] to obtain financial aid for the school.
During the time Cross held the college presidency, from November 1998 through February 2002,[6] Singh obtained about 1,800 payments from federally insured loans and Pell grants for these students, who had no idea they would be responsible for paying off the loans, the indictment said.
At the time of the 2004 indictment, Cross was teaching at DePaul University in Chicago.[7] On May 1, 2006, Cross pled guilty to fraud by embezzling millions of dollars in federal funds from the government and students.[8] She agreed to pay $11,000 to the Department of Education in restitution. Singh also pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement.
On January 3, 2007, Cross received five years of probation and one year of home confinement for the fraud. Cross, 70 years old, suffers from sleep apnea and has had a series of small strokes, factors the judge took into consideration when devising the sentence. Singh, 64, also received five years of probation but 18 months of home confinement. An additional factor the judge considered was that the embezzled funds were not used for personal profit, but to prop up the school's poor finances.[5] However, the initial indictment said Cross had used the funds to finance personal trips for herself, her family, and friends.[9]
The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias, made a somewhat exculpatory statement at their sentencing: "When the defendants arrived at Morris Brown, the college was already in serious financial condition. Thereafter, these defendants misappropriated ... money in fairly complicated ways in what appears to have been a misguided and ultimately criminal attempt to keep Morris Brown afloat."[1]
[edit] Civil lawsuits
In addition to civil lawsuits filed by former and current students, Morris Brown faces a civil suit for defaulting on a $13 million property bond, a case that eventually could lead to foreclosure on some of the college's most historic buildings, including its administration building, attorneys involved in the case say.
The complaint asks for $10.7 million in principal owed on the loan agreement, $1.5 million in interest and a per diem of $2,100 for each day Morris Brown does not pay.
If a judge decides Morris Brown owes the debt and the school cannot pay, it could face a variety of enforcement options, including the liquidation of certain assets, said Gregory Worthy, a lawyer who represents the banking association and trustee in the case.
[edit] Trivia
| Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Radio personality Tom Joyner made several offers to buy the troubled college from 2002 through 2004, during the worst of the accreditation and fraud crises. In 2003, his charitable foundation gave the school $1 million to assist with its immediate needs.[7]
- Hosea Williams, noted civil rights activist, was a graduate
- James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is a graduate
- Stone Hall, completed in 1882, is closely associated with the history of the college and listed as a National Historic Landmark.
- The 2002 film Drumline and the 2007 film Stomp the Yard were partly filmed there. In 2006 Warner Brothers filmed "We Are Marshall" in the football stadium.
- "Morris Brown", a song by Atlanta hip-hop duo OutKast off their 2006 release Idlewild, features a performance from the Morris Brown College Marching Wolverines.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "Ex-president of Morris Brown gets probation" January 4, 2007 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Accessed January 4, 2007.
- ^ Incomplete citation for May, 2006 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- ^ Jones, Andrea. "Morris Brown Marks 126 Years." February 24, 2007 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Metro News, 1B.
- ^ Jones, Andrea. "Morris Brown supporters raising money with walk-a-thon." October 12, 2007 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Accessed October 12, 2007.
- ^ a b "Former college president gets probation for $3.4M embezzlement" Associated Press report. January 3, 2007. Accessed January 4, 2007.
- ^ "Federal Indictment Accuses Former Morris Brown President and Aid Officer of $5-Million Fraud" December 10, 2004 in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Accessed summary January 4, 2007.
- ^ a b "Former Morris Brown College president, financial aid director indicted for fraud", December 30, 2004, in Black Issues in Higher Education. Accessed via online archive service January 4, 2007.
- ^ Morris Brown College May 1, 2006, Washington Post.
- ^ "Ex-President of Morris Brown College Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement" May 1, 2006, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Accessed January 4, 2007.
[edit] External links
- African-American Registry History of Morris Brown College Accessed January 4, 2007.
- Morris Brown College official website Accessed January 4, 2007.
- Gamma Gamma Gamma Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Morris Brown Chapter of national black women's college sorority, accessed January 4, 2007.
- Black Colleges of Atlanta
- Photo of 1900 Morris Brown College Baseball Team at PBS. Accessed January 4, 2007.
- Links to news items regarding Morris Brown College crisis Accessed January 4, 2007.
Colleges and universities affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church |
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| Allen University • Campbell College (defunct) • Daniel Payne College (defunct) • Edward Waters College • Kittrell College (defunct) • Morris Brown College • Paul Quinn College • Shorter College (Arkansas) • Western University (defunct) • Wilberforce University |
Categories: Articles with trivia sections from June 2007 | African Methodist Episcopal Church | Historically black universities and colleges in the United States | Universities and colleges affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church | Universities and colleges in Georgia (U.S. state) | Unaccredited institutions of higher learning
