Knoxville College
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Knoxville College |
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| Established | December 16, 1875 |
| Type | Private coeducational |
| President | Earl G. Yarborough Sr. |
| Location | Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Mascot | Bulldogs |
| Website | [1] |
Knoxville College is a historically black college in Mechanicsville, Knoxville, Tennessee, founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America. At first it offered education in grades 1 through 12 to prepare freedmen for higher education; by 1931 the high school-level Academy was disbanded, leaving Knoxville College a four-year institution of higher education.
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[edit] Location
The main campus of Knoxville College is located on 39 acres, situated north of downtown Knoxville, in the city's Mechanicsville community. Its 17-building campus continues to be the primary institution for minority students in East Tennessee. In 1989, Knoxville acquired the two-year Morristown College, which became Knoxville College-Morristown. The two-year school closed in 1994. Knoxville College is a United Negro College Fund member school.
[edit] Detailed history
In 1862, the Reverend O.S. McKee, under the auspices of the Freedmen's Mission of the United Presbyterian Church, founded the McKee School in Nashville, the first organized school for Negroes in Tennessee. The church soon established similar missionary schools for blacks in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.
In 1872, the General Assembly of the church resolved to discontinue support of the schools in order to establish a college where blacks might prepare for ministerial and teaching careers. Two years later, the church selected Knoxville to be the site of the college as the black residents of the city expressed interest in education and the city was strategically located between existent centers of black education, Nashville and Atlanta.
In 1875, Knoxville College began operation in a former freedmen's elementary school. The following year, the college moved to a permanent location on a hill northwest of and overlooking downtown Knoxville. In 1878, only 174 of the student population studied on a level equivalent to or above that of a college freshman.
During the 1880s, black legislators obtained state scholarships for military cadets at the college. During 1890–1909, the college served as the Industrial Department for black students of the University of Tennessee in order to acquire funds for the scientific and industrial education of blacks, authorized by the Second Morrill Act.
In 1914, the College of Arts and Sciences was established. From 1920 to 1950, the normal school was emphasized giving to the school the distinction of being the leading supplier of teachers to black schools in East Tennessee. Since 1950, the College of Arts and Sciences has been emphasized including the implementation of community service programs and dramatic productions.
In 1954, the college charter was amended in order to allow formally the admission of white students, although the children of some white faculty members had previously attended the college. In 1957, the college was one of the first group of predominantly black institutions admitted to full membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). In 1979, the church deeded the title for the college property to the Board of Trustees of the college.
[edit] Present Day
Knoxville College lost its SACS accreditation in 1997 and has struggled increasingly since then. In the August 2005 and its Board of Directors fired the college president, Barbara Hatton. Since the loss of the college's accreditation, the campus has had numerous lawsuits from staff, for the lack of paying them.
Knoxville College in partnership with the Pilot Gas station located adjacent to the campus (at the corner of Western Avenue and Middlebrook Pike), is revitalizing the Knoxville College Historic District.
[edit] The Tennessean Newspaper Article
The July 6, 2006 edition of The Tennessean newspaper, based in Nashville, Tennessee, reported that officials said that historically black Knoxville College was experiencing a reversal of fortune.
A year earlier, the college was down to about 130 students, couldn't pay its faculty or electric bills and was drowning in debt.
According to the report enrollment was rebounding. More than 400 students were accepted for the 2006 fall semester from more than 700 applicants. The faculty was being paid, the lights are back on and the college's debts had been cut by about two-thirds, down more than $2 million.
"Oh, let me tell you it's the best problem in the world", Will Minter, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory official helping as a development strategist and fundraiser for the college, said of enrollment growth. "I'm happy to have one where we're overloaded."
The turnaround began after the school's trustees ousted former President Barbara Hatton in August and asked Robert H. Harvey, an alumnus and longtime math professor retired from the National Science Foundation, to step in as interim president.
"We are miles ahead of where we were a year ago", said Ronald Damper, a Chicago businessman and chairman of Knoxville College's Board of Trustees. "We've had outstanding success in getting assistance from a number of people to get us to this point. The community has embraced the college."
The Knoxville College Alumni Association was reportedly in the middle of a $1 million fundraising effort, while the college was engaged in a $2.5 million "Road to Success" campaign. Administrators said the college had paid down $2 million in debt, but still was $1 million behind.
[edit] Breaking News
On February 19, 2007, Colston Hall (the college's men's dormitory) caught fire. Two rooms were destroyed and there was smoke damage throughout the building. The 80 occupants were allowed to retrieve any items they could get. The men slept on cots in the gym that night. Later they were temporarily housed in Brandon Hall, the women's dormitory. Knoxville Fire Department investigators determined that the fire was accidental, not due to an electrical problem (J.J. Stambaugh, College seeks help after dorm blaze, Knoxville News Sentinel, February 20, 2007, and Darren Dunlap, Work begins on dorm damaged by blaze, Knoxville News Sentinel, February 22, 2007).
[edit] Notable Alumni
- George E. Curry - editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association news service (NNPA) and www.BlackPressUSA.com.
- Johnny Ford- Mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama.
- Jake Gaither - Legendary Florida A&M University football coach who won more than 85 percent of his games over a 24-year period, from 1945 to 1969.
- Grady Jackson- defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers football team of the National Football League.
- Vernon Jarrett, the first African-American columnist for the Chicago Tribune and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
- Dr. Edith Irby Jones - The first female president of the National Medical Association.
- Barbara Rodgers, anchor for KPIX in San Francisco.
[edit] External links
American Baptist College • Aquinas College • Baptist Memorial College of Health Sciences • Belmont University • Bethel College • Bryan College • Carson-Newman College • Christian Brothers University • Crichton College • Cumberland University • Fisk University • Free Will Baptist Bible College • Freed-Hardeman University • Johnson Bible College • King College • Knoxville College • Lambuth University • Lane College • Lee University • LeMoyne-Owen College • Lincoln Memorial University • Lipscomb University • Martin Methodist College • Maryville College • Meharry Medical College • Memphis College of Art • Memphis Theological Seminary • Milligan College • O'More College of Design • Rhodes College • Sewanee, The University of the South • Southern Adventist University • Tennessee Temple University • Tennessee Wesleyan College • Trevecca Nazarene University • Tusculum College • Union University • Vanderbilt University • Watkins College of Art and Design
