Lincoln University has addressed its Dawson Hall mold situation but still is fighting a bed bug problem in the same dormitory, President Kevin Rome said Wednesday afternoon in a wide-ranging, half-hour news conference.
"We've received several questions about things that may or may not be occurring at Lincoln University," he announced, "so we wanted the opportunity to address the issues ourselves."
Rome's news conference came about five hours after he took part in an hour-long Board of Curators conference call, which was a closed session for legal and personnel issues.
He didn't discuss the board meeting during the news conference, and he declined to be specific on several personnel issues the school is facing this year.
The school's 19th president defended recent decisions to decertify its history degree program and cut other degree programs, noting colleges and universities across the country are facing similar decisions with under-performing programs.
Rome praised the success of this summer's inaugural "Project Jump Start" college-readiness program that brought some freshmen to the Jefferson City campus for a kind of warm-up to their first college year.
"We brought about this program because we were concerned about the retention of our students beyond their first year," he explained. "Of the 127 students who took part in the nearly two-month program, we had 87 percent return to the university this fall.
"This program will assist the university with retention numbers in the future, as we better prepare students who are coming here."
DAWSON HALL
Rome said this fall's mold problems in some students' rooms in the 1960s-era high-rise residence hall stemmed from students trying to override the central heating and air conditioning system.
"Where students can't control the thermostats in their own rooms, if you have the air conditioning going and students open their windows," he said, "the condensation created from having the heat coming in and (mixing with) the air conditioning will cause mold to grow.
"We have cleaned all the units."
Rome didn't know of similar problems in other campus buildings but said the other buildings' heating-and-cooling systems operate differently from the Dawson system.
He acknowledged some Dawson Hall rooms also have experienced a bed bug problem.
"Bed bugs come with people - they just don't appear in a residence hall," Rome said. "We don't know (when) they arrived, but we do know we did not have bed bugs in residence halls until students showed up.
"We are going through whatever steps to get rid of the bed bugs."
CURRICULUM QUESTIONS
LU faculty and some outside groups have complained about the curators' decision to decertify the history degree program and eliminate several others.
Rome called the decisions necessary.
"Lincoln University believes strongly in being good stewards of state taxpayer dollars," he said. "It is because of this belief - and several other factors - that the university made the very hard decision to discontinue some academic programs which we were enrolling and graduating low numbers of students."
Even with those changes, Rome said Lincoln University continues to offer a strong educational foundation at a great value to its students.
"U.S. News and World Report ranks Lincoln University among the nation's top 80 HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities)," he said. "GetEducated.com named Lincoln University at No. 5 of 164 regionally accredited institutions offering online MBA programs."
FACULTY UNREST
On Sept. 29, LU's Faculty Senate voted 88-18, with six abstentions, supporting a no-confidence resolution in Said Sewell's work as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.
"If faculty vote no confidence - which happens all over the country - they deserve a response," Rome said Wednesday. "I sent them an email saying I will respond to them next week."
Also this fall, an unannounced number of LU faculty members have signed cards seeking to have the Missouri NEA represent them in collective bargaining talks.
Rome said his administration takes the request seriously.
"Anytime you have a request like that, that involves lawyers and contract negotiations and other matters," he said, "and those are all taking place right now."
POLICE OPERATIONS
Rome said no specific incident forced LU officials to have campus police wear body cameras.
"It's just in line with what's happening around the country," he explained. "If we have an incident, we don't want to be on the news like we've seen in other places.
"We want to be able to capture what's happening, and there's no question. If there's a body camera, when someone makes a complaint or someone says they were mistreated, we have it all on tape."
Since Police Chief Bill Nelson retired early this year, Lincoln has started a search for his successor.
"It's going well," Rome said. "We have candidates coming to campus in the next couple of weeks."
He expects a new chief to be on the job by January.