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Barber-Scotia College

Barber-Scotia College is a historically black college located in Concord, North Carolina, United States.

History

Scotia Seminary

Barber-Scotia began as a female seminary in 1867. Scotia Seminary was founded by the Reverend Luke Dorland and chartered in 1870. This was a project by the Presbyterian Church to prepare young African American southern women (the daughters of former slaves) for careers as social workers and teachers. It was the coordinate women's school for Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University).

It was the first historically black female institution of higher education established after the American Civil War. The Charlotte Observer, in an interview with, Janet Magaldi, president of Piedmont Preservation Foundation stated: "Scotia Seminary was one of the first black institutions built after the Civil War. For the first time, it gave black women an alternative to becoming domestic servants or field hands, Magaldi said."

Scotia Seminary was modeled after Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) and was referred to as The Mount Holyoke of the South. The seminary offered grammar, science, and domestic arts. In 1908 it had 19 teachers and 291 students. From its founding in 1867 to 1908 it had enrolled 2,900 students, with 604 having graduated from the grammar department and 109 from the normal department. Faith Hall, built in 1891, was the first dormitory at Scotia Seminary. It is listed in National Register of Historic Places and "is one of only four 19th-century institutional buildings left in Cabarrus County." It was closed by the college during the 1970s due to lack of funds for its maintenance.

Presidents
Luke Dorland	1867-1885
D.J. Satterfield	1885-1908
A.W. Verner	1908-1922
T.R. Lewis	1922-1929
Myron J. Croker	1929-1932
Leland S. Cozart	1932-1964
Lionel H. Newsom	1964-1966
Jerome L. Gresham	1966-1974
Mable Parker McLean	1974-1988
Tyrone L. Burkette	1988-1989
Lionel H. Newsom (interim)	1989-1990
Gus T. Ridgel (interim)	1990
Joel 0. Nwagbaraocha	1990-1994
Asa T. Spaulding Jr.	1994
Mable Parker McLean	1994-1996
Sammie W. Potts	1996-2004
Leon Howard (interim)	2004
Gloria Bromell-Tinubu	2004-2006
Mable Parker McLean (interim)	2006-2007
Carl Flamer	2007 - 2008
David Olah	2008 - Present

1916-2004

It was renamed to Scotia Women's College in 1916. In 1930, the seminary was merged with another female institution, Barber Memorial College, which was founded in 1896 in Anniston, Alabama by Margaret M. Barber as a memorial to her husband. This merger created Barber-Scotia Junior College for women.

The school granted its first bachelor's degree in 1945, and became a four-year women's college in 1946. In 1954, Barber-Scotia College became a coeducational institution and received accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Today, the college maintains close ties to the Presbyterian Church.

Accreditation loss

On June 24, 2004, one week after appointing its new president, Dr. Gloria Bromell Tinubu, the college learned that it had lost its accreditation which meant that students became ineligible for federal aid (an estimated 90% of the school's students depended on federally funded aid) and that many employees would be laid off. It lost its accreditation due to what the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools said was a failure to comply with SACS Principles and Philosophy of Accreditation (Integrity), as the school "awarded degrees to nearly 30 students in the adult program who SACS determined hadn’t fulfilled the proper requirements [...] Former President Sammie Potts resigned in February" when it became public. Enrollment then dropped from 600 students in 2004 to 91 students in 2005 and on campus housing was closed down.

To prevent it from closing, President Gloria Bromell-Tinubu led a strategic planning effort to change the college from a four-year liberal arts program to a college of entrepreneurship and business, and established partnerships with accredited colleges and top-tiered universities. She would later leave the college when the new Board leadership decided to pursue religious studies instead. Former President and alumna Mable Parker McLean was hired as president on an interim basis. In February 2006 a committee of the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to continue the denomination's financial support for Barber-Scotia, noting that its physical facilities were "substantial and well-secured" and that the school was undertaking serious planning for the future. In May 2006, it was reported that Barber-Scotia would rent space on its campus to St. Augustine's College to use for an adult-education program: "Under the terms of the deal, St. Augustine's will pay Barber-Scotia for the space for its Gateway degree program starting this fall." McLean was replaced by President Carl M. Flamer (an alumnus of the college) who accepted the position without payment and the college re-opened with a limited number of students. During this time, the "previous attempts to revive the college [which] have centered on an entrepreneurial or business curriculum" were formally abandoned "in favor of focusing more on religious studies." Flamer also worked to eliminate debt and worked with alumni and the community to save the college.

Barber-Scotia was scheduled to reopen as a "full college" in fall 2008 and planned to apply for accreditation in September. It is headed by president David Olah and his advisor Tony Baldwin.

Notable alumni

One of Scotia Seminary's most notable alumnae was Mary McLeod Bethune, adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Notable faculty

The New York Times noted that the mother of novelist Chester Himes "taught at the elite Scotia Seminary in North Carolina before her marriage."

Additional reading

Cozart, Leland Stanford. A Venture of Faith: Barber-Scotia College, 1867-1967. Charlotte, NC: Heritage Printers, 1976.
Gross, Leslie. "Faith Hall: A Landmark in Need of Friends." The Charlotte Observer. May 9, 1999: 3K.
Barber-Scotia College. National Register of Historic Places designation report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service, 1985.
African American Registry. " History of Scotia Seminary"
Scotia Seminary 1881-82 Catalogue
Scotia Seminary: North Carolina and Its Resources (1896)
State Library of North Carolina. " Scotia Seminary, Concord N.C. (1908)"
Data for Historically Black Colleges and Universities: 1976-1994 - Government publication which includes enrollment statistics for Barber-Scotia College