What is Lincoln University's mission, and who does it serve?
Before LU can market itself successfully and reverse the trend of decreasing enrollment, it needs an honest self-evaluation, including answering the above two questions.
On Sunday, the News Tribune ran several stories stemming from several months of investigation that, among other things, revealed former LU President Kevin Rome traveled for nearly half of his tenure. His travel expenses were higher than his counterparts at Missouri's other four-year universities.
From June 1, 2013, through June 30, 2017, he spent nearly $200,000 for more than 200 trips. For a college president, traveling is a required part of the job. As the public face of the university, the president travels to promote his school, rally alumni, obtain donations/grants and other funding, and recruit students.
We presume Rome did all of this and more. But his traveling was obviously well beyond average.
That alone isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the traveling seemed to produce little to no tangible results in terms of recruitment or fundraising. Quite the opposite, LU's enrollment and its total assets are on the decline.
The Lincoln University Foundation Inc. reported a 78 percent decline in investment revenue and a 4 percent decline in contribution revenue in 2016.
Rome reported to the school's Board of Curators, so they knew about his travels and presumably the costs. But was Rome's focus their focus?
There's nothing to suggest Rome's extensive travel was either at their behest or against their will. There's not much evidence to show they cared either way, or that they expected Rome to show any tangible benefits from his travels. The curators never had detailed discussions about it in their meetings.
In the business world, measuring your ROI (return on investment) is standard procedure. If you neglect this, you can't expect to stay in business long.
The board's job, along with the president, is to lead the direction of the university. Right now, it needs leadership more than ever.
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) throughout the U.S. are struggling with enrollment. Over the past weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported in 1977, 35 percent of black college graduates received bachelor's degrees from HBCUs. By 2015, that had declined to 14 percent.
"Other schools are now offering generous financial aid and superior facilities to recruit black students," according to the Journal. It also said "HBCUs tend to educate predominately low-income populations, while well-to-do and better-educated black students attend more-prestigious universities."
LU continues to enroll more white students than black. One question the curators need to address: Does LU want to focus on making black recruitment a priority? Or does it want to focus on attracting area residents, who tend to be more white commuter students, and more non-traditional (older) students?
Lincoln was founded with the idea of providing an education to those who haven't had strong education foundations - and we're not suggesting it abandon that mission. Nor are we suggesting it abandon its historical roots.
Past presidents have said it can do both. Rome's made traveling a huge push, and he seemed to make an emphasis on boosting Lincoln's HBCU status. But what is there to show for the efforts?
Board of Curators President Marvin Teer told the News Tribune that curators don't micro-manage the president. But the curators' job is to guide the university. It's great that they were updated by Rome on his travels, but they need to be much more hands-on than that.
They need to have a clear vision for where they want the university to be, and how it will get there. Both the curators and the president should be working lock-step toward a singular goal.
That's not micro-management, it's leadership.