The Crisis at Cheyney: Time to Speak, Or To Step AsideThe…

The Crisis at Cheyney: Time to Speak, Or To Step Aside

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today profiles the continuing struggle of Cheyney University, one of the nation’s oldest historically black colleges fighting against increasing debt, falling enrollment and lack of support from Pennsylvania’s higher education system.

According to the report, Cheyney is bracing for a 30 percent drop in enrollment this fall, when 700 students – less than half of the 1,500-member student body the school enrolled in 2010 – are expected to report to campus this month. From the Post-Gazette:

A coalition of students, alumni and community activists — called Heeding Cheyney’s Call — is pushing for change through a civil rights lawsuit filed in November. The suit mirrors previous ones from the early 1980s and late 1990s, arguing Cheyney has not received a fair share of government resources.

Cheyney stakeholders agree that the issues the university is facing did not emerge overnight but are largely a reflection of years of fighting for equitable treatment and funding.

“People think Cheyney is about to close,” said Junious Stanton, former Cheyney University Alumni Association president. “It’s underfunding of a much higher need to where we’re forced to take minimal resources and put Band-Aids on the problem instead of really addressing and solving the problem. The situation is unsustainable.”

Many HBCUs face challenges with geography that is less than attractive to students and corporate support, programs which don’t easily lead to high-earning potential or easy entry into the workforce, headlines that shred the spirit from alumni and supporters, and data which counteracts even the best intentions of donors and philanthropists. Add to that dwindling faculty, and the situation becomes even more dire.

But Cheyney as an institution doesn’t help its own cause when administrators speak sparingly about the challenges, while never mentioning opportunities. The biggest point of optimism in the article was an alumni-filed lawsuit which may or may not prevent the school from merger or closure.

The lawsuit, with all of its merit and its evidence of Pennsylvania’s criminal neglect of Cheyney, could take years to settle. Alumni simply cannot afford to keep the school, a multi-million dollar business with hundreds of employees, afloat while the dust settles around it. Add in the Department of Education’s investigation of the handling of federal financial aid, and all of the makings of the next Morris Brown-like institutional death seem to be, sadly, in place.

Its one story, and perhaps administration is doing a great job of rallying support behind the scenes. But Cheyney is losing in the public square, and its in that space where the dialog, and its influence on policy and finance, turns deadly.

Alumni should be celebrated for their tenacity in fighting for Cheyney, but survival will require a more aggressive, productive administration working to do more than slash budget and extend registration deadlines for students who aren’t coming. It will require more public appeal for support, to help stakeholders and casual observers understand how the university arrived at its current position of financial hardship and lack of appeal in recruiting, and what HBCU supporters worldwide can do to support its cause.

Otherwise, make a concession speech and allow us all to mourn the death of another once-glorious historically black college.

(Source: post-gazette.com)