When officials at tuition-driven Fisk University raised the veil of secrecy a few years ago surrounding the university’s financial condition, the details they laid out were less than encouraging.
The Nashville-based university, the home of the historic Jubilee Singers, was losing several million dollars a year and had not received any major private support for a school of its stature in at least two decades, the Fisk officials told a Tennessee judge. Fisk had mortgaged all its property it could to raise cash to keep its doors open, they explained.
Enrollment, one of a university’s two principal sources of income, was nose-diving, the university told the court. It had cut salaries, suspended contributions to its pension plan and vacation accrual and was deferring all but the most essential building maintenance.
The bleak financial report came to light in a court battle Fisk is still waging in an effort to raise new money by monetizing — first by selling parts and, more recently, part ownership of its treasured Alfred Stieglitz Collection of art and photographs. The 101-piece collection, once valued at more than $70 million, had been donated to the school by the late artist Georgia O’Keeffe with strict conditions prohibiting its sale. The legal battle lingers in the state’s court system with no end in sight, a fact that further clouds the outlook for Fisk.
Fisk did not have to disclose it was in trouble with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS, the regional accrediting agency for most colleges and universities in the South. That embarrassing situation was already a matter of public record, as SACS had been questioning the university’s financial stability and quality of leadership.
In the nearly two years since Fisk publicly detailed its financial crisis, SACS has maintained Fisk’s accreditation while steadily raising red flags about the school. Two years ago, SACS placed Fisk on warning status. In December, SACS placed Fisk on probation, giving it a year to demonstrate it is a financially viable entity with a “qualified” leadership team or risk more severe sanctions.
Today, as more than a dozen HBCUs search for new presidents, few present more challenges to presidential prospects than Fisk, say many seasoned higher education observers who see the clock ticking on the once venerable institution.
