On yesterday I received a confidential email from a SACS official about three HBCUs which will receive their final SACS review concerning their accreditation status. Without going into specifics about the email, the three colleges are: Bennett College (one of 2 HBCUs for women), Talladega College and Grambling State Univ. Last year few (present company not included) thought SACS would strip Morris Brown of her accreditation credintials in their Dececember 2002 reveiw. Here we are a year later and the exact fate may be awaiting the above historic black institutions of higher education. Each college has a key asset which might avert MBC's negative review of a year ago. Bennett's President is Johnetta Cole (fmr Prez of Spelman). She has the political savvy and business acumen to avoid a negative SACS review. Grambling has the legendary football coach Eddie Robinson. Louisiana's first elected female Governor will have to get to work TODAY to avoid this embarrassing possibility under her watch. Talladega has a long tradition of producing some of the finest black intellectuals in the state of Alabama. The key question is will this be enough to stave off a negative review by SACS? I hope so but given what happened to MBC last year one can't be certain. QED

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

Answers

Certainly, a schools legendary reputation in the area of football will hold no weight when it comes to loosing its accreditation by SACS. A few years ago, if my memory serves me right, Fisk University almost closed, and with the help of Bill Cosby and a hard working team of administrators/academics, the school remained open. That is what is going to have to happen with our HBCU's. The alumni and even those of us who didn't attend HBCU's are going to have to put our money where our mouth is, even if it is $25 per month. If we want to keep our schools open, we are going to have to support them financially and hold them to a higher standard. God bless.

-- Anonymous, November 18, 2003