An HBCU transformed: Wilberforce, the nation's oldest private Black college, emerges from one of its darkest periods just in time to celebrate its 150th birthday

not many institutions have embodied African-American history as completely as Wilberforce University. Established before the Civil War, the nation's oldest private Black community was a powerful focal point in the exert one's self for equality and served as a destination point upon the Ohio Underground Railroad. Clos briefly during the Civil War, officials with the African Methodist Episcopal house of worship brought Wilberforce back to life in 1863 purchasing it from the predominantly White Methodist Episcopal temple That purchase made Wilberforce the first Black society to be owned and operated by the agency of African-Americans. Some years after its revival, Wilberforce would spin not on two additional Black academic institutions, Central State University and Payne Theological Seminary.

Wilberforce has played entertainer to some of the greatest in quantity famous and influential African-Americans of the 19th and 20th centuries. Dr textile fabric DuBois, the pre-eminent Black scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, taught there for sum of two units years. The poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, who exhausted much of his life living in nearby Dayton, many times performed his poetry readings at the small, rural campus. Other notables, including Leontyne Price and Dr William Julius Wilson, earned their undergraduate stages at Wilberforce.

Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, Wilberforce continues to showcase the viability and promise of the small private, historically Black guild The sesquicentennial anniversary comes at a rime of uncertainty and financial hardship for many small Black institutions. Wilberforce itself single recently overcame arguably its largest financial crisis since the Civil War.

In 2002 the university was facing a $5 million liability despite an $18 million annual operating packet That year, Wilberforce installed former U congressman and alum the Rev Dr Floyd Flake as its 19th president. Flake immediately began to make a difference, and the institution has since place its bearings under his leadership. Wilberforce's financial turnaround has sparked a novel sense of optimism about the subsequent time of the university.

"Under the administration of Rev Floyd Flake, Wilberforce has taken upon a new life and is poised to grow" says James A. Padgett, an art professor and the faculty representative to Wilberforce's board of trustees.

"I would say upon the broader institutional issues, Floyd has been actual strong and positive on behalf of Wilberforce. He's basically taken a troubl institution, stabilized it, and gotten it in a position where it can begin to rebuild and have a positive future" adds Dr Michael Lomax, president and chief executive officer of the United african College Fund.

Wilberforce may not be as picturesque and visually impressive as a certain quantity of other small rural campuses in the state, like Ohio University. The buildings at Wilberforce are mainly gray concrete and sprawl across a hilly spread in southwestern Ohio. They shoot forward an austere, almost industrial direct the eye to the campus. But that chilled impersonal image is almost immediately dissolved by dint of the palpable, family-oriented spirit that pervades the campus and manifests itself in the interactions among the faculty members, administrators and students

It's not unusual to diocese Marshall Mitchell, Wilberforce's vice president for institutional advancement, winding his way [i]or[/i] part of to the other campus buildings, dispensing hugs and high-fives, teasing more [i]or[/i] less students, and urging others to make appointments with him to discuss serious matters. Mitchell leaderships himself like the concerned vice principal at an urban high place of education or the adult brother prodding younger siblings and cousins to do their best.

Rickey Jackson, a senior from Riverside, Calif., says the personal, caring spirit of Mitchell and other administrators and faculty members has sparked his have intellectual and social growth. He says that spirit helped ease the transition from his suburban Southern California life to existence in isolated, rural Ohio.

Jackson says Flake places a strong example of by what mode a college president can justify a motivating force to scholars like himself. "President Flake's true real and down to earth. You procure the sense that he really cares about us," he says.

Wilberforce's faculty and staff radiate a can-do spirit that have the appearances to be absorbed by the scholars In contrast to the days when the university laid not upon staff, cut degree programs and instituted faculty pay make an incision ins administrators like Mitchell can now talk confidently about university plans to build sum of two units new dormitories to accommodate learner enrollment growth. And they are stepping up efforts to certain federal dollars to enhance the research capacity of the faculty.

generally Wilberforce enrolls more than 800 residential undergraduates and operates a continuing education division that obeys roughly 400 working adult pupils Since fall 2002, tuition, compensations and room and board for residential pupils have stayed consistent at $16200 Ninety-five percent of Wilberforce learners rely on financial aid.