Posted on 03/26/2014 7:18:27 AM PDT by YourAdHere
With a mountain of debt and less than three dozen remaining students, Morris Brown College in Atlanta may be reconsidering its refusal last year to sell its 37-acre campus to the city, according to media reports.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that the school sought a bankruptcy court’s approval to retain a real estate broker and pursue the sale of its campus. It was unclear how that sale would affect the college’s handful of remaining students and its continued operation.
The historically Black institution was founded in 1881, but was crippled in 2003 when it lost its accreditation after an investigation revealed two top officials embezzled millions in student financial aid and redirected it to other purposes.
Attendance plummeted as thousands of students sought an education elsewhere; according to a recent profile by American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” the school currently boasts just 35 students attending classes at a campus which is largely boarded up.
The Journal-Constitution reported the school rebuffed a $9.7 million offer by the city last year that would have absolved the school of more than $35 million in debt. The newspaper indicated that the city could potentially sell or lease portions of the property to other groups, including two local churches, while still allowing Morris Brown space to operate.
However, the Journal-Constitution reported that the school may have changed its mind, after an open records request revealed that Morris Brown officials contacted Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed in early March to gauge the city’s interest in renewing talks on a deal.
The school sits near an area targeted for revitalization, including a planned new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.
“Let me be very clear in my thinking about Morris Brown. There’s getting ready to be a $1.2 billion investment on that corridor,” Reed told the Journal-Constitution. “It makes sense for the city to control a strategic asset to be developed with the strength of the community in mind.”
Morris Brown professor Makisha Funderburke is among the handful of educators who remain, and told “Marketplace” that she teaches without pay to help the college stay alive.
“I just think Morris Brown should be given a chance,” she said.
Dear Stormer:
Duh. NOT unlike ALL humans with their varying colors of white-pink-brown-black. I DID figure that out a LONG time ago, but if you feel the need to state the obvious GO FOR IT. I'm listening. (Frasier Crane)
WHY don't you now delve into eye and hair color?
And yes, I DO know that the Scandinavians have the lighter hair, eyes and skin so their bodies will absorb the rarer sunlight BETTER than darker hair, eyes and skin.
BTW: ALL over Stockholm there are seemingly random benches facing, seemingly, nowhere. Come to find out, they ALL face the sun, wherever it might be during the year.
Also, they DO have the extended days BUT that sun stays REALLY, really low on the horizon all day long, ALL day long. Sunglasses are NOT really needed and since the sun stays SO low on the horizon, the extended days are ALMOST moot.
Besides, those Vikings did get around and spread those light-colored eyes and hair to MANY places.
Finally (THANK GOD, he is thinking.), I discovered that the Scandinavians pronounce "vikings" as "veeekings." VEEKINGS? Really?? To me, it just DOESN'T have the same "penache" as "vai-kings".
==========================
My husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia five years and we saw every imaginable shade of skin color.
However, MOST humans on this planet DO have dark hair/eyes and darker-than-pink skin. The lighter hair/eyes/skin were the anomaly and thus considered "prized." Go figure.
Contrary to what you might believe, I wasn't born in a barn.
Maa-aaaa-aaaa
Moo-oooo!
Not baaaaad, eh? No, I'm not a foreigner...100% American. I just felt that "eh" was appropriate here.
:o)
It rid itself of white students after the first season, including a central character played by a very promising rising star, Marisa Tomei.
In her official capacity as an officer of a private corporation, she defrauded the US Government Taxpayers by misappropriating funds to pay the debts of that private corporations. She should be out of a job (and maybe in prison); the private corporation should be required to repay those misappropriated funds to the US Government Taxpayers. If that results in the bankruptcy and closure of said private corporations, so be it.
SC State ( a HBCU ) has constantly had several news reports about the school being close to losing their accreditation. Nothing further is written on what they did to solve the problem. Then in a few years, more news comes out about a new accreditation threat. This has been going on for decades. I wish they would stop pretending that nothing is wrong and be done with it.
A few years ago, a son of a co-worker (white) got a full-ride athletic scholarship at Edwin Waters in Jax, FL. While he was a decent baseball player, he certainly couldn't get a ride at a normal school. He was there for one reason - to help raise the academic average of the athletic dept, in order to retain conference eligibility for the basketball team.
So the baseball team had several white guys, lousy w/l record, but very good academic avg. The basketball team had no whites, very good w/l record, and lousy academic avg. But the academics for the dept averaged good enough to satisfy the conference.
So the College was happy, but spent money on scholarships that were not justified. Who picks up that tab, I wonder.
Wow! Ya mean the millionaire obamas won’t use THEIR OWN money to save a black “institution”? And the mooch just got spinning a uarn to the Chinese about how tough it was to grow up black.
There was an episode of “Who do you think you are” that featured Emmitt Smith. You may or may not be aware of this TV show, where they delve into a person’s ancestry to try and trace back and find previously unknown branches of their family tree and family history.
One of the first things the genealogist did was to run his DNA to see if that would give her any clues. It turned out that he was 82% African, 18% European. She was surprised at this result — she said out of all the DNA samples that she had run on a black client, he had the highest percentage of African that she had ever seen.
One of the first things the genealogist did was to run his DNA to see if that would give her any clues. It turned out that he was 82% African, 18% European. She was surprised at this result — she said out of all the DNA samples that she had run on a black client, he had the highest percentage of African that she had ever seen.
My mother and I had our DNA done.
I was 92% western European and 8% EAST ASIAN!!
I asked my mother about it and she supposed that it was from my father, who was born in Mexico of French heritage.
So, I had the 8% tested further...and it was from my MOTHER.
Go figure. I guess that's why I like rice as much as I like potatoes.
My father's mother was Spanish Californian but had a turned-up nose. NO Spaniard has a turned up nose.
TURNS OUT that mi abuela DID have some Irish in her. It was PROBABLY an Irishman fleeing a potato famine, ALL the way to California...thus the turned up nose on that grand dame from Spanish California.
Anyway, I embrace my Eastern Asian heritage, GUNG HAY FAT CHOI, and bring on the rice!!
Lol, one of my father's favorites was "Spanish rice"--LOL!!!
What irks me is when there is a state funded college/university within 50 miles or so of a state funded HBCU -- both struggling to survive. THAT makes no sense to me.
she did lose her job... and so did a second person... and her actions severely hurt the school...
Correct. I don’t speak Afrikaans, but it basically means “half-breed”. And although we think of the term bastard as a pejorative, in Namibia it’s just a cultural or ethnic identifier.
Nice rant. Too bad it doesn’t have anything to do with what I posted.
TURNS OUT that mi abuela DID have some Irish in her. It was PROBABLY an Irishman fleeing a potato famine, ALL the way to California...thus the turned up nose on that grand dame from Spanish California.
That's not at all far-fetched. One of my g-g-g-grandfathers immigrated from Ireland due to the potato famine. He came in through New Orleans, married a cajun woman, and then settled in western Louisiana. One of his sons (my g-g-g uncle) went to California during the gold rush and never returned. I would imagine that the gold rush brought in people from all kinds of backgrounds.
I haven't had my DNA done and don't know what lurks there, but nothing would surprise me.
Thanks. You KNOW it HAD to be true as NO ONE could make that up.
You really should have it done. It ain't cheap but it IS easy and ... you NEVER know what you may find!
My mother found a long ago Bohemian cousin who came to the USA to avoid going into THEIR military: 19th century draft dodger!
Hah, I had to look up "Bohemia" because I wasn't sure EXACTLY where it was.
Sorry. I KNOW that I'm the ONLY poster in ALL of FR history to have EVER done that before.
SHAME on me. I will never, never, ever do that again to you. And, of course, it's NEVER, EVER been done to me.
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