Morris Brown College

Morris Brown College (MBC) is a private, coed, liberal arts college located in the Vine City community of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is a historically black college affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although Morris Brown College is not a member of the Atlanta University Center Consortium, it is located within the Atlanta University Center (a district designated by the Atlanta City Council).

In 2002 it lost its accreditation and federal funding due to a financial mismanagement scandal during the 1998–2002 tenure of Dolores Cross as school president. The United Negro College Fund also terminated its support for the college.

In August, 2012, Morris Brown filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an attempt to prevent foreclosure and sale of the school at auction.

Academics
Morris Brown offers baccalaureate degrees in Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology (for traditional students) and Organizational Management and Leadership (for Adult Degree matriculants).

Accreditation
Morris Brown is in a "Self-Study" phase of the accreditation process with Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools and is looking to reapply in October of 2012. Until 2003, Morris Brown was accredited by a regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Morris Brown was more than $23 million in debt and was on probation in 2001 with SACS for shoddy bookkeeping and a shortage of professors with advanced degrees. In December of 2002, SACS revoked Morris Brown's accreditation. Almost eight years later, the college settled its nearly $10 million debt with the Department of Education.

Establishment
The Morris Brown Colored College (its original name) was founded by African Americans affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had expanded in Georgia following the American Civil War. The North Georgia Annual Conference of the AME Church on January 5, 1881, passed a resolution to establish an educational institution in Atlanta for the moral, spiritual, and intellectual growth of Negro boys and girls. The school formally opened its doors on October 15, 1885, with 107 students and nine teachers. Morris Brown was the first educational institution in Georgia under sole African-American patronage. For more than a century, the college enrolled many students from poor backgrounds, large numbers of whom returned to their hometowns as teachers.

Fountain Hall, originally known as Stone Hall when occupied by Atlanta University, was completed in 1882. It is closely associated with the history of the college and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. After Atlanta University consolidated its facilities, it leased the building to Morris Brown College, which renamed it Fountain Hall.

Criminal scandal
Eighty percent of the school's 2,500 students received financial aid from the federal government, which gave Morris Brown $8 million a year. A federal criminal case against the former president, Dolores Cross, and the financial aid director, Parvesh Singh, proved the pair had embezzled a great deal of the federal aid and diverted it to ineligible college costs, such as personal staff, instead of subsidizing the students.

In 2002, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked the college's accreditation because of its financial problems. Cross and Singh were charged in December 2004 in a 34-count indictment that accused them of defrauding the school, the U.S. Department of Education, and hundreds of students. The pair, who had first worked together at a college in Chicago, Illinois, were convicted of using the names of hundreds of students, ex-students, and people who were never enrolled to obtain financial aid for the school.

During the time Cross held the college presidency, from November 1998 through February 2002, Singh obtained about 1,800 payments from federally insured loans and Pell grants for these students, who had no idea they would be responsible for paying off the loans, the indictment said.

At the time of the 2004 indictment, Cross was teaching at DePaul University in Chicago. On May 1, 2006, Cross pleaded guilty to fraud by embezzlement. She agreed to pay $11,000 to the Department of Education in restitution. Singh pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement.

On January 3, 2007, Cross was sentenced to five years of probation and one year of home confinement for the fraud. Cross, 70 years old, suffers from sleep apnea and has had a series of small strokes, factors the judge took into consideration. Singh, 64, also received five years of probation but 18 months of home confinement. An additional factor the judge considered was that the embezzled funds were not used for personal profit, but to prop up the school's poor finances. However, the initial indictment said Cross had used the funds to finance personal trips for herself, her family, and friends.

The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias, said at the sentencing: "When the defendants arrived at Morris Brown, the college was already in serious financial condition. Thereafter, these defendants misappropriated ... money in fairly complicated ways in what appears to have been a misguided and ultimately criminal attempt to keep Morris Brown afloat."

Uncertain future
The school has $22 million in long-term debt and $5 million in short term debt. Both the alumni association and the African Methodist Episcopal Church have pledged to keep the school from closing. As of January 2009, Morris Brown has 240 students.

Morris Brown College, at one point reduced to an enrollment of just 44 students, continues to operate as a scaled-down version of its former self. In 2004, Dr. Samuel D. Jolley, who had been the school's president from 1993 to 1997, agreed to return to the presidency to help the college's attempts to recover.

By February 2007, MBC had only 54 students in two degree programs, supported by 7 faculty and staff employees. Despite this, after the sentencing of two former administrators, the chair of the college's board of trustees, Bishop William Phillips DeVeaux, issued a press release stating the college would move forward and that "This sad chapter in the college's history is now closed."

In addition to civil lawsuits filed by former and current students, Morris Brown faces a civil suit for defaulting on a $13 million property bond, a case that eventually could lead to foreclosure on some of the college's most historic buildings, including its administration building, attorneys involved in the case say. The complaint asks for $10.7 million in principal owed on the loan agreement, $1.5 million in interest and a per diem of $2,100 for each day Morris Brown does not pay.

In December 2008, the City of Atlanta disconnected water service to the college because of an overdue water bill. The debt has since been paid and the service restored.

The school faces foreclosure in September 2012.

Athletics
The college briefly had a NCAA Division I athletics program, until it lost accreditation.

Notable alumni
This is a list of notable alumni which includes graduates, non-graduate former students, and current students of Morris Brown College.