Knoxville College

Submitted by R. Neal on Sun, 2008/02/17 - 10:51am.

The KNS has an in-depth article about Knoxville College today. Can a school with 66 enrollees, $7 million in debt and millions more in maintenance backlogs survive? It sure sounds like they're trying.



Past time

This emperor has no clothes and has, in fact, been limping along naked for too long.

Shutter Knoxville College. Send the 66 students to Pellissippi State and throw the $2 million annual budget into Project GRAD or Knox County Schools to help kids prepare for college. -- s.

Except that they wouldn't

Except that they wouldn't have any incentive to go to Pellissippi State, which is oriented to serve local residents. According to the article, the student body of K.C. are all from places other than TN except for two students. A primary attaction of K.C. to the students is the fact that it is an HBCU. Unfortunately, many HBCUs are falling on hard times, such as Fisk in Nashville and its controversial proposal to sell its Georgia O’Keeffe paintings to raise capital.

What's the role?

What is the role of an HBCU in the current educational system? I ask this in all seriousness, not as a politically incorrent provocation. At one time, the role was clear. Smart, ambitious young people were denied admission to most other colleges because of their ethnicity. For all the issues and concerns that still remain, that premise is simply no longer the case. So what's the current mission of HBCUs like Knoxville College? Find a good answer to that, and you have your answer to what the fate of KC should be.

I think they will always

I think they will always have a legacy role to some degree. "That's where my father went to school." Other places like Howard or NC A&T are very complementary to the communities in which they reside, and are pretty good schools. I think one problem is that some big schools like UT are still over 85% white (though getting better or trying to). It's the state university and it should be fairly representative of the population in the State. I am not saying there should be quotas, but there are some disincentives for minorities in attending these schools -- none the least is the racial balance. It's a chicken and egg thing. Conversely, Ivy League schools are having trouble with the reverse issue where white, middle class kids are choosing smaller elite schools because of the perception that they are at an enrollment disadvantage. Schools like Lafayette, Bucknell, Reed etc. have track records of professional school admission as good as the Ivies, so why fight what is perceived as a tilted system full of Asians that grind, elite Northeastern white kids on legacy and blacks who are there to meet the "quotas?" Then there are tuition costs....

It's a pretty tough problem. Universities fret about it a lot.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

"I think one problem is that

"I think one problem is that some big schools like UT are still over 85% white (though getting better or trying to)."

Tennessee.gov reports census data that the African American population in Tennessee is 16.9%. How far off from that is UT? Does having a nearby HBCU help or hurt the effort at equity at the UT Knoxville campus?

R. Neal's picture
Probably doesn't hurt it too

Probably doesn't hurt it too much, given that the article says there aren't any students there from Knoxville and only a couple from Tennessee. Most are from Michigan or overseas. And there are only 66.

Trivia: I played a gig one time at Knoxville College circa 1971 with the sock hop/dance/rock/pop band I played in when I was in high school.

UT is at 84.8% white and

UT is at 84.8% white and 8.7% black. I remember going to a chancellor's meeting at UT where Crabtree said they had made great strides in these numbers when asked. Of course, he was fired for having vision and what not.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

Perhaps a combination of

Perhaps a combination of multiple of Pellissippi/Roane State/Walters State/Austin Peay/ETSU/Tenn Tech
could move in and offer 4 year degrees from Board of Regents programs. Grads that are in heavy demand like nurses, teachers, etc.

KC

I believe that Knoxville College will only survive if People of all races realize the benefits this college has to offer. There are many great black schools that are receiving funds from HBC However, small schools like Knoxville are not getting any of these funds. I personaly refuse to give to HBC for that reason. There are some black Americans who could help these school out of their defecits.These people are not asking for a hand out;they are looking for a hand up.
Oprah, Jortdan. Cosby. I am not saying that these peolple do not aide other educational projects.but this school has a greater need.

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