‘Viable, valid, vital’ and a total mess: What can stop cascading controversies at KSU?
It was perhaps predictable that Dr. Christopher Brown, who suddenly left his job as president of Alcorn State University under a cloud of financial problems in 2014, has now suddenly left his job as president of Kentucky State University under a cloud of financial problems so severe that Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered an outside review.
The people now laughing might include the faculty who voted no confidence in the Board of Regents and its chair after the botched search that ended with Brown, the three members of the Board of Regents who voted against him and not least, Aaron Thompson, then-Kentucky State’s interim president who pulled the school out of financial harm, but was left off the list of finalists for the president’s job.
And what a list it was! Along with Brown, there was a provost who got a vote of no confidence from his faculty, and a state Supreme Court justice with no higher education experience. I’ll never forget when then-KSU general counsel Gordon Rowe said publicly that while two of the candidates had “allegations” against them (that anyone could find with a simple Google search), “they also have very strong credentials, something that seems to have been overlooked.”
Thompson got the last laugh because he went on to become president of the Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees all the public universities in the state. But as he pointed out recently, it’s deeply sad to see the state’s only public Historically Black College or University (HBCU) get or give itself yet another body blow in mismanagement and controversy.
“I believe it’s a viable, valid and vital institution to Kentucky,” he said earlier this week. “It’s the state’s only public HBCU, and that’s crucial because we’re still in a society where we have students who feel isolated based on race.”
Leadership problems
Leadership has long been a problem at Kentucky State; way back in 2002, President George Reid became the fourth president in 20 years to be ousted by the Board of Regents. It took six months amid an FBI investigation into finances for Reid and the board to come to a legal settlement.
The next president, Mary Evans Sias, led for 10 years, despite fragile finances and sinking enrollment. President Raymond Burse made it for two years in his second term but flustered the public by announcing that Kentucky State might have to close because of its finances. The General Assembly excluded it from that year’s round of budget cuts.
The only constant was Board of Regents Chairwoman Karen Bearden, who became deeply entwined with every day business at Kentucky State in her 13 years on the Board of Regents. After Brown’s hiring, she sued her former board members for slander, although the lawsuit was dismissed. She went on to become the first university board member the CPE ever recommended for removal. Gov. Bevin did not act on the recommendation.
Kentucky State’s enrollment, which dipped below 2,000 students in 2017, is now about 2,500 students, but graduation rates still flutter between 20 and 25 percent. It’s also been hurt by performance funding, which apportions some state money competitively between all eight public universities and therefore favors schools like UK over those a fraction of its size. Now Kentucky’s State financial situation appears to be so dire that board members reached out to the governor’s office about an outside audit.
Whatever outside auditors find, it will no doubt include the Kentucky State University Foundation, which apparently has various presidential accounts that do not require board approval. Burse got at least $85,000 from the foundation to pay an outside PR firm to tell the Kentucky State story, and the contract was extended ”verbally” to help with the presidential search, without the knowledge of other regents.
Then we have to find out more about the private-public partnership between Kentucky State University and CRM Companies of Lexington to build a 400-bed dormitory with a $55 million bond.
Then there’s half a dozen lawsuits alleging harassment and other misconduct among campus leaders, which will no doubt reveal more unsavory details from behind the scenes.
Scholar Crystal DeGregory, who worked at Kentucky State University as head of the Atwood Center, told the State-Journal working there was “the most terrible, horrible thing I have ever known.” DeGregory also said that because people are so worried about the vulnerability of HBCUs, they may question calling out bad leadership.
The State Journal also broke the news that two regents, Candace McGraw and Paul Harnice have resigned from the board. Harnice was one of the three regents who voted against Brown’s hiring.
‘I’m pessimistic’
It’s a mess, and has been for years. Part of Kentucky State’s struggle goes back much further, says John Thelin, a higher education historian at the University of Kentucky.
“KSU and its cohort of public HBCUs usually have to run faster to try to catch up to those institutions that have the benefits of selective admissions, generous endowments, wealthy and large alumni, and a record of high scale philanthropy,” he said. “One enduring legacy of the era of state racially exclusive colleges was that few state HBCUs had either the charter or funding for such prestigious advanced academic programs as law, medicine, and Ph.D. programs.”
In addition, as richer and private colleges and universities try to diversify their student bodies, competition for prestigious faculty and students of color gets harder. KSU also faces a relatively high number of competing institutions in Central Kentucky.
There’s been some talk about turning Kentucky State into a satellite of UK or the University of Louisville, but no one from either political party really has the heart to subsume Kentucky’s only HBCU.
Because of that political sensitivity, these problems may once again get pushed aside, said David Neville, a first generation alumnus who’s involved in the school’s numerous agriculture programs and helps recruit and find scholarships for students.
“I’m pessimistic,” he said. “A lot of folks are very nervous about doing anything about this, so unfortunately they may not pick the best person and the cycle will begin again.”
State Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, has deep roots at Kentucky State because his parents and grandparents went there (his grandmother, Leoda Lynn was the first Miss KSU in 1929), and he teaches criminal and business law there.
He noted that with the past year’s racial reckoning over police violence and other issues, HBCUs are more important than ever, with enrollment increases seen here and at other schools around the country.
“Do we have to correct these leadership mistakes?” he asked. “I would be the first to say that and I intend to take a more active role. But we are seeing a resurgence in HBCUs nationally. Kentucky State is too valuable to lose.”
He’s right, of course. Kentucky State’s rich history is one of struggle and triumph in a former slave state, far too important to erase. And yet it somehow doesn’t seem important enough for our state’s leaders, Kentucky State’s leaders, alumni organizations, faculty and students to come together to insist on the kind of school that’s worthy of that past. The question is how many more times it can go through another cycle of controversy before it has no future.
This story was originally published July 23, 2021 at 9:54 AM.
