President of struggling HBCU resigns after little more than a year

Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Dec 1, 2005

CONCORD, N.C.

The president of struggling Barber-Scotia College, which won t have any students for the winter term, has resigned and been replaced by former college president Dr. Mable Parker McLean.

Dr. Gloria Bromell-Tinubu, who arrived in summer 2004, resigned through mutual consent, says Thomas Robinson, chairman of the board oftrustees.

McLean, 83, is a Barber-Scotia graduate who served as president in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s, when the school was on "warning" status for accreditation and faced concerns about enrollment.

"I have such an abiding faith in what the institution can mean and has meant to generations," McLean says. "I'm not promising anybody anything but my best. I'm not promising it will make Scotia bloom again ... but I do know it can stand up, and now it's leaning."

The historically Black college, founded in 1867, will continue to seek accreditation, says Robinson. The school has one employee, who works in the business office, he says.

Just days after Bromell-Tinubu was announced as president in June 2004, the college lost accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. That meant that most students could not receive federal aid. By the first part of this fall term, the school had less than five students (sec Black Issues In Higher Education, Aug. 26, 2004)

"As a board, we are still very optimistic as far as funds being raised and the college coming back," Robinson says.

--Associated Press