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The Post and Courier, a newspaper out of Charleston, SC has conducted its own investigation using an open records request. The newspaper has described the university's records as "a convoluted system of record-keeping, with no central control and records on the same subject located in different offices or buildings."
There was a consultant's report recently completed by the firm Elliott Davis which concluded that the university's system of grant management not only makes it difficult to track the money, it also makes it tough to find out whether the objectives of the grant were accomplished.
One example is that the center received $5.8 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation, with much of the funding not carefully documented. There was a list of 11 "contractual services" granted in a given year, with no detail on what the money was used for or what the university received in return. In addition to this problem, the consulting report lists numerous concerns about how the money has been spent.
Mismanagement of Historically Black Colleges and Universities remains a persistent problem, consistently inhibiting progress of the African American community. Most of us know students or teachers at HBCUs with missing financial aid papers, bounced paychecks or some other administrative error that was never properly addressed. As a PhD student, I had a friend who applied for a faculty position at a prominent HBCU in the DC area, only to see the university responding to her job application months after every other campus had interviewed her and made an offer. It's just a great big mess.
Most of us know that HBCUs can be the best places in the world to get an education, but we must honestly confront the administrative bungling that takes place on our campuses. Old school leadership holding on to antiquated ways of doing business must be replaced by those with enough vision to bring the black educational community into the 21st century. This is not to say that South Carolina State is doing anything wrong, but don't sit there and pretend that you're surprised.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.