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Morris Brown College is a historically black college university (HBCU) located in the West End Community in Atlanta, Georgia. Morris Brown College is one of six institutions of higher learning that comprise the cluster of historically black colleges known as the Atlanta University Center. 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.
Morris Brown College (MBC) is a four-year, private, coed, liberal arts institution affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was founded in 1881 “for the Christian education of Negro boys and girls in Atlanta.” Morris Brown opened with 2 teachers and 107 students in 1885; it was now an institution with 450 faculty and staff members and more than 2,000 students.
The school operated on the primary, secondary, and normal school levels until 1894, with a regular academic program and courses in tailoring, dressmaking, home economics, nursing education, commerce, and printing. A theological department for the training of ministers was established in 1894. That same year the College Department began, graduating its first students four years later.
Morris Brown College’s status was changed to university in 1913, and it was granted the right to establish and operate branch institutions of learning. The heavy burden imposed by the branches on the school’s finances made it necessary to discontinue the branches in 1929, when the present name, Morris Brown College, was restored.
The primary mission of Morris Brown is to provide educational opportunities in a Christian environment that enable students to become fully functional persons in society. In fulfilling this mission, the College accepts the obligation to place events and points of view in the context of man’s long intellectual history and to expose both to the light of man’s best thinking.
It was a member of the Atlanta University Center until it lost its accreditation and federal funding in 2002 because of financial mismanagement. Currently, the school operates with less than 50 students and is attempting to raise the funds to repay its debts and operate with a full enrollment.
Accreditation Issue
Morris Brown was more than $230 million in debt and went on probation in 2001 from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools for shoddy bookkeeping and not having enough professors with advanced degrees. Eighty percent of the school's 2,500 students received financial aid from the federal government, which gave Morris Brown $8 million a year.
On December 10, 2002, the Southern Association revoked Morris Brown's accredidation.
The former president Dolores Cross and financial aid director Parvesh Singh are currently on trial for financial fraud related to the school's crisis. 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, stand accused of using the names of hundreds of unwitting students to obtain financial aid for the school. From August 1999 through January 2002, 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.
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 doesn't pay.
If a judge decides Morris Brown owes the debt and the school can not 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.
College officials have said the school plans to re-apply for accreditation later this year, a lengthy process that would require the college to be debt-free. Morris Brown, which has an enrollment of just 44 students, lost its accreditation in 2003 and has continued to operate as a scaled-down version of its former self. Students are no longer eligible for state or federal aid, and the college is still deeply in debt. It offers three degree programs and employs just nine faculty members.
MBC Today
As of the 2005-2006 school year, MBC has 66 students and nine professors. The school has $25 million in long-term debt, and both the alumni association and the African Methodist Episcopal Church have pledged to keep the school from closing. The school plans to have 107 students in the fall, the same number when the school opened in 1881.
On May 1, 2006, former MBC-president Dolores Cross pled guilty to fraud, namely embezzling millions of dollars in federal funds from the government and students*.
Trivia
- 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 was partly filmed there.
External links
Historically black universities and colleges in the U.S. | National Historic Landmarks of the United States | Universities and colleges affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church | Universities and colleges in Georgia (U.S. state)
"Morris Brown College"