Erik Schelzig, AP, Dec. 28, 2007
Despite two years of trying, Fisk University has not been able to turn any of the valuable art donated by painter Georgia O’Keeffe into cash.
Although a legal fight over the latest $30 million proposal to share the 101-piece art collection with an Arkansas museum is scheduled for trial in February, leaders of the struggling historically black university acknowledge that it could be years before any money changes hands.
So the Nashville school that was founded in 1866 to educate former slaves has had to look elsewhere to keep its doors open—a difficult task in a community that has been asked to come to the school’s financial rescue several times before.
“There is a fatigue factor there,” said Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat and a former Nashville mayor. “There’s a lot of people who give money traditionally for valuable projects who have given money to Fisk in the past, who don’t think they’ve necessarily fixed the underlying problems.
{snip}
Fisk’s board of trustees in December 2005 voted to try to sell off two signature pieces of the art collection to help keep the school afloat. Those efforts became bogged down in court battles over whether the sale of paintings violated the terms of O’Keeffe’s bequest, and a Fisk lawyer told the judge that the school was likely to run out of cash before the end of the year.
{snip}
Davis Carr, a former member of the school’s board, said donors are frightened off by Fisk’s decades of financial problems.
The university had to borrow money in the late in 1970s and averted a shutdown in the early 1980s, thanks in large part to donations from Nashvillians and alumni.
Fisk reported operating losses that totaled more than $7 million in 2005 and 2006, according to GuideStar.org, which tracks the finances of nonprofit organizations.
Fisk’s lawyers have said the school has mortgaged all of its buildings and tapped out all of its endowment not restricted to specific programs.
A 2002 plan to boost enrollment by about 500 students over four years never came to fruition, and the school’s student body remains at fewer than 900 students.
“Foundations who give serious money don’t give it to poorly managed institutions,” Carr said. “I’m not saying Fisk is currently poorly managed, but if they’ve not been able to make it work over some long period of time, that sends a signal.”
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on December 28, 2007)
Comments
Fisk should have a public fund raising targetting the players of the NFL, NBA, and rappers. I watch television’s showcasing of the billion dollars homes of Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and so many others but I never see these billionairs contributing a dollar to traditionally Black charities.
Posted by Tim at 6:22 PM on December 28
All black colleges need to do to succeed financially is fire their black staff and replace them with whites.
Posted by at 8:02 PM on December 28
“I’m not saying Fisk is currently poorly managed, but if they’ve not been able to make it work over some long period of time, that sends a signal.”
You mean like black inability to compete in a first world civilization after 150 years?
The answer lies in Africa. The old country beckons.
Posted by at 9:26 PM on December 28
“I’m not saying Fisk is currently poorly managed, but . . .”
. . . losing $7 million in two years certainly helps.
Posted by Reader-1 at 9:36 PM on December 28
The “college” is run by blacks, so you know it’s completely mismanaged and inefficient. Like african nations, I’m sure the leaders are stealing from its coffers and robbing the place blind. Either that, or the blacks running the school were so incompetent that they ran the budget into the ground.
George Manuelian
San Jose, CA
Posted by at 10:18 PM on December 28
Historically black colleges have outlived their usefulness and should be allowed to die a peaceful death. With affirmative action placing black college students three or four rungs higher than they deserve to be in the educational hierarchy, who is left to populate Historically black colleges? Obviously, people who have no business being in college at all! These students gravitate to the weakest major-education-and then go on to populate black and inner city schools as faculty, where they pass on their ignorance to the next generation, while getting cushy government jobs for themselves. Ever wonder why the teacher’s union is so militant? Now you know.
Posted by Jungle Jim at 12:37 AM on December 29
I have no problem with the idea of a private institution
such as this. Instead, I detest the idea of taxpayer-funded
institutions such as Howard continuing to exist while
nothing comparable for any other group is permitted.
Posted by Larry at 12:57 AM on December 29
“the Nashville school that was founded in 1866 to educate former slaves”
Look up “radicals”, “carpetbaggers”, “freedman’s bureau” and “reconstructionists” to learn how this stuff originated. Warning: if you don’t approve of “ethnic cleansing” you may be sickened.
P.S. Don’t use the computer—go to the library & find the old pre-PC history books.
Posted by Cousin Charlie from TN at 7:07 AM on December 29
“There’s a lot of people who give money traditionally for valuable projects who have given money to Fisk in the past, who don’t think they’ve necessarily fixed the underlying problems. They are really in the mode of ‘I’m kind of through with that.’ “
This sums up my response to anything that has to do with blacks.
Regardless of how much money we spend and what programs we initiate, nothing changes for the better.
Dealing with blacks is a dead end. Lose-lose. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Good money after bad. A pipedream. Wishful thinking. Pointless.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 9:25 AM on December 29
Time after time after time after time, blacks show their inability to run or manage ANYTHING. Their destiny seems to be to work UNDER A SUPERIOR and not on their own. Name one country in the world or one state in the nation where blacks seem to run things that is doing well. You can’t because, it doesn’t exist.
Well you might bring up that buffoon OPRAH but her audiance isn’t blacks who resent her, it’s weak minded, pampered, older, white females. And it seems to be the same ones so eager for the attention of the wonderful black male..
Posted by Boxxer at 10:47 AM on December 29
George (above) is sadly correct. Blacks can’t manage anything, it seems, without a continous flow of cash from the productive, and even then the money seems to just disappear. Look at large cities where blacks are “in charge”. They, the cities and the managers, are corrupt, crime-ridden and filthy. This, folks, is no accident.
Has anyone noticed that the reality shows that showcase businesses and professions, no matter how small, never show a black business? I sure haven’t.
Posted by Proactive at 11:38 AM on December 29
Fisk should have a public fund raising targetting the players of the NFL, NBA, and rappers. I watch television’s showcasing of the million dollars homes of Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and so many others but I never see these billionaires contributing a dollar to traditionally Black charities.
Boy, the fact these people are paid so much to hit or throw a ball is ridiculous.
Posted by at 3:28 PM on December 29
I looked through the Fisk University website and, much to my utter shock, no ban on hate crimes exists.
At so-called “White” universities all sorts of anti-hate statutes are enacted and posted all over the campus.
This must mean that at an institution such as Fisk, White students are not protected by the same draconian regulations which ironically give Africans a pass on their regularly abysmal social behavior at, say, a University of Illinois, Notre Dame, or Northwestern.
You can’t beat it: equal protection under the law!
Posted by Annoyed In Illinois at 4:39 PM on December 29
Money pits exist for a reason, this one is a shakedown for rich liberals with more money than common sense.
Posted by Lars at 10:03 PM on December 29
Your attention please!!! Now what does this teach us….if you want something run right…hire whites!!!
Posted by lydia at 10:27 PM on December 29
Some relevant news from the University’s web site:
(Press release of December 12, 2007)
Nashville, TN – Fisk University announced today that it has been awarded two grants by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation totaling $3 million. The two grants include $1 million to be used for the school’s immediate financial obligations. The second grant of $2 million is to be used as a challenge grant to be matched on a two-to-one basis within six and one-half months and requires Fisk to obtain Foundation approval of its plans for fundraising and reorganization. This requires Fisk to raise $4 million by June 30, 2008.
So, outsiders are propping them up even as we speak.
Posted by Reader-1 at 4:21 AM on December 30
But wouldn’t you rather keep the HBCUs running so they will not come to universities where our white boys and girls attend? If HBCUs keeps getting weaker, the black students will start knocking on the doors of non-HBCUs and our liberals will gladly take them in no matter how dumb they are.
Posted by at 11:57 AM on December 30
While I may never agree with all of your assertions about blacks, I do agree that we no longer require any so-called aid from whites. I don’t want your welfare, your subsidies or your stupid liberal guilt. What I do want is simply to be left alone. If you don’t like blacks, fine. Don’t do business with me or live around me. However, stop taking my money to support the new Amerikan hegemon. Stop trying to recruit me to die in wars that will never benefit me. Don’t pass laws to hinder the small man in business while sustaining and helping the powerful one.
If whites realized that even they have become slaves under this government and simply back a new order that left everyone alone, while enforcing a just law equally, we would see no more friction between our groups. I don’t care if you won’t let me marry your daughters or live in your neighborhoods. I do care when you allow a government to tax, license and bureaucratize folks to death. What happened to freedom in this country? I’ll support your right to discriminate and hate whomever you like, if you support my right to open a damned hot dog stand without having to fill out 20 different forms and pay 20 different fees to 20 different bureaucrats.
When will you all wake up and realize that it’s your own so-called leadership that is screwing us all. I have more in common with a lower-class white man than any of us poorer folk have in common with the rich.
Posted by The Black Anarch at 12:16 PM on December 30
The MSM didn’t have any black or hispanic schools to tout as being a success so they took a mostly Asian school with an Asian principal and teachers to show how well the minorities are doing academically. Only whites and Asians can run things well, not blacks. Get that through your head!!
Posted by at 4:20 PM on December 30
Look at Detroit the city has been a complete faliure ever since a black mayor has been in charge. Im sure there are other citys that are run by black and have the same problems. Look at Africa and look at Detroit not much of a difference.
Posted by nick d at 4:55 PM on December 30
I agree with”TheBlackAnarch.” Most people of watever race or ethnic background just want to be left alone to live their lives in the manner most comfortable to themselves. The problems we have can more often than not be directly attributable to powerful special interests purposefully stirring up trouble among various groups. These conflicts inevitably lead to more aggrandizing of power and wealth to those special interests.
Posted by I agree.. at 7:59 AM on December 31
The Black Anarch @ 12:16PM on 12/30
Sounds good to me. However, things have gone too far now. We all have to remain true to our people now and stick by them. You to yours, me to mine.
Tom Iron…
Posted by Tom Iron... at 9:30 AM on December 31
Black Anarch,
I don’t think you’ll have many arguments from AmRen readers about your points. We support freedom of association, small government and have no shortage of contempt for white liberals.
Make sure to also direct your rage at the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world, and the 90% of blacks who support affirmative action and government handouts.
Posted by at 11:49 AM on December 31
“Look at Africa and look at Detroit not much of a difference.”
The point about the new white self-consciousness is that we no longer have that heavy burden for mankind, which the liberals still hold over in a a perverted sort of way from the classical race-based colonial (British, French) and pseudo-colonial (segregation, Apartheid) systems. This time we only look out for ourselves.
If the blacks ruin their cities and their countries, tough. We will no longer bail them out because we don’t want the burden of ruling over them, whether in the classical race-based manner or the new neo-liberal form. If they ever do well on themselves, good for them.
Posted by at 1:00 PM on December 31
If the blacks ruin their cities and their countries, tough. We will no longer bail them out because we don’t want the burden of ruling over them, whether in the classical race-based manner or the new neo-liberal form. If they ever do well on themselves, good for them.
Posted by at 1:00 PM on December 31
Let the Asian take up the “white man’s burden”. I would luv to see them struggle like we did and still do.
Posted by at 4:08 PM on December 31
