Morris Brown College may not open for Spring 09 semester

[Phrozen1ne]

ATLANTA: Rallying around Morris Brown

College on the ropes: Alumni, others raise $70,000, aim for more in fight to keep historic institution operating.

By Jamie Gumbrecht
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Louise Hollowell sat before 60 Morris Brown College supporters in Atlanta on Saturday and confessed she was worried.
She’s 95, a former Morris Brown student and board member. She taught there for 35 years, and she said struggling students with good excuses always learned the material and passed her classes. She’d always found a way to make it happen.

The Morris Brown community now has to find a way to pay its bills and to get out of debt to find its own path to survival, Hollowell said during a Yes We Care fund-raising rally on the campus of the 127-year-old institution. She’s got a big house, she said, and they can throw all kinds of parties there, if that will help.
“We want people to help us —- we have to get up and help ourselves first,” she told the crowd of approximately 60 people gathered outside the John Lewis Gym. “Anybody in need is your neighbor. I’m here. I’m very much concerned.”
Online donations and handwritten checks added up during the rally, which the school plans to repeat next Saturday. Acting President Stanley Pritchett read names and amounts out loud, from $10 to $10,000, and called on city officials to work with the school to help keep it open.
“This is a movement, my people, not just a call to action,” Pritchett said to the crowd, dressed in shades of purple, Morris Brown’s signature color. “This is not just an Atlanta situation.”
By Saturday evening, the college had raised more than $70,000, mostly from alumni living in metro Atlanta, Pritchett said.
Morris Brown owes the city about $380,000, some in delinquent bills nearly 5 years old. The city on Dec. 15 shut off water service to the school. A Jan. 6 foreclosure date is set for Jordan Hall, a campus building. Enrollment is at 240, a far fall from the 3,000 students it had when it lost accreditation in 2002.
The school suffered the added indignity of seeing its former president and former financial aid director convicted of a federal embezzlement scheme in 2006.
School officials are struggling to restore basic services, such as water, so classes can open for the spring semester Jan. 9. Pritchett said the school must first handle its financial emergencies before it can implement its long-term plan and work toward re-accreditation.
During the rally, school officials spoke of teachers working without pay and staff members uncertain if their next paychecks would come. They pointed to alumni, students and band members who came to support the school, waving printed signs that said, “Yes, we care,” then held hands to sing the school’s song.
Chuck Irving, a junior studying music education, said students are apprehensive about the outlook for next semester. He’s trying to stay optimistic, preparing to march with the school band during the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Wednesday.
“We’re still a very good school. We’re still here to do our job, be students, be ambassadors of education,” said Irving, who says he’s donated $218 with his mom, a Morris Brown alumna. “There’s a lot of purple blood running through this city. People need to come back to us.”


Thoughts??