Troubled College Sees Signs of Turnaround
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
Historically Black Knoxville College is experiencing a reversal of fortunes, officials say. A year ago, the college was down to about 130 students, couldn’t pay its faculty or electric bills and was drowning in debt.
Today, enrollment is surging — more than 400 students have been accepted for the fall semester from more than 700 applicants. The faculty is being paid, the lights are back on and the college’s debts have 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, says 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 Dr. Robert H. Harvey, an alumni 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,” says Ronald Damper, a Chicago businessman and chairman of the college’s board of trustees.
