Fisk U. president to retire

Hazel O'Leary announced yesterday her plans to retirement as president of Fisk University, effective at the end of the year.  O'Leary has been Fisk president since August 2004, and previously served as U.S. Energy Secretary from 1993 to 1997.

In a statement released Friday by the university, the 74-year-old O'Leary said Fisk has achieved top tier performance among liberal arts institutions in academics, student retention and engagement. She did not say why she chose this year to retire.  


For the past five years, she has been involved in a legal battle over whether the school can sell a $30 million stake in an art collection donated to the school by the late American artist Georgia O'Keeffe. 


To be fair, O'Leary inherited a school in debt and was  never able to devise a successful plan for turning it around.

SACS Rejects Fisk U. Financial Plan

Financially troubled Fisk University was dealt another setback Thursday in its efforts to remain a significant player in higher education when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools rejected the Nashville university’s financial update and added more items to the important agency’s list of concerns about the historic school’s viability.

At its summer meeting in Charlotte, N.C., which ended Thursday, SACS continued its “warning” status for Fisk until December, giving it six more months to address a variety of issues or face being placed on probation or dropped from membership in the widely respected regional accrediting body.

Fisk has been on warning status from SACS for more than a year, with the Atlanta-based agency repeatedly citing the school’s weak financial condition as the key reason for refusing to grant Fisk a clean bill of health. In its final statement Thursday, SACS expanded the scope of its concerns to include questions about whether Fisk’s administrators were qualified to lead, the qualifications of its academic officials and the school’s compliance with Title IV education programs.

SACS general rules grant schools 24 months to address “warning” status matters. In the case of Fisk, which has been in warning status 18 months, the SACS decision Thursday means Fisk needs to comply with SACS’s issues by December or the agency would be forced to place Fisk on probation or drop it from membership in SACS.

Removal from membership could result in Fisk being disqualified from receiving federal financial aid for its students, some 90 percent of whom rely on financial aid to go to college. Higher education analysts say such an outcome could essentially doom the historic school, a fixture in Nashville since the Civil War and home of the world famous Jubilee Singers.

Fisk had been hopeful its stepped up fundraising efforts would turn SACS around, had no immediate comment on the SACS action.

Fisk forced to trim budget by 15 percent

Beset with financial troubles before the nation’s economy began a free fall last year, Fisk University is signaling tougher times ahead.

In a “Family Letter,” dated Feb. 20, Fisk President Hazel O’Leary told the Fisk community the school has lost 11 percent of its enrollment since last August, and that annual donations are down by more than 40 percent for the year. “

To “bring our expenses in line with our reduced revenues,” O’Leary said the school’s board of trustees had approved a 15 percent cut in the school’s budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year ending June 30.

“Our mission to cultivate bright young people of high intellect and character cannot be underestimated in an adverse economic climate,” O’Leary said. Echoing an argument made this time a year ago, O’Leary said ending the fiscal year without a deficit was crucial to maintaining the school’s accreditation.

Estimates, based on published data, put the student revenue loss in excess of $150,000 and donor revenue off by several million dollars. While O’Leary’s statement made no reference to the school’s endowment, which was estimated between $6 million and $8 million at various times during 2008, most endowments are down in value by 20 percent to 40 percent because of the stock market crash. Fisk long ago mortgaged nearly all of its real estate assets to stay in business.

O’Leary said “all areas” of the university have taken steps to cut expenditures, including a freeze in hiring and entering new service and professional contracts, except essential ones, a freeze on nonessential travel, elimination of reassignment of adjunct faculty to merge class sections, cuts in purchases for supplies and operations and cost sharing for critical services.