Jenkins, testifying at a city council hearing earlier this month, said the university’s lack of control over its own finances, property, purchasing and computer systems has crippled its ability to serve students and threatens its academic accreditation.

Jenkins cited a "ridiculous set of roadblocks by the D.C. government to UDC being able to operate efficiently as a university." Among them:

• non-negotiable, high fees charged by D.C. government agencies for performing services that the in-house expertise on UDC’s faculty and staff would allow the university to perform for itself. Jenkins cited a $1 million bill from the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) for which he sought explanation; instead, he said the Office of the Chief Financial Officer simply removed the $1 million from UDC’s budget at OCTO’s request.
• the city’s failure to provide a 100 percent match for Land Grant Matching Funds that UDC receives annually from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for at-risk youth, nutrition and food safety, adult literacy and community leadership training programs. Jenkins said the failure to match approximately $650,000 has resulted in the programs’ disruption and "giving such vital funds back to the federal government."
• the city’s refusal to fund a statutory mandate that UDC document and reverse through counseling a 50 percent dropout rate of students between their freshman and sophomore years. Jenkins said the university lacks such basic services as a student counseling center and an Office of Institutional Research, which he said are needed to comply with this mandate.

Calling himself a "citizen’s president – freer to tell the truth" than his predecessors because he is not seeking permanent appointment, Jenkins lambasted the recently retired D.C. financial control board and other city leaders for saddling the university with information technology systems that are incompatible with its reporting requirements and repeatedly failing to fund needed improvements.

Jenkins said using the university’s current information technology systems to comply with academic accrediting organizations’ reporting standards requires "manual manipulation of data ...[that] becomes time-consuming and prone to error." He said the university has an "urgent need" for a one-time infusion of $6.1 million to correct the computer problems.

"The failure to meet any of these critical needs threatens to undermine the university’s overall stability and competitiveness at this delicate point of rebuilding," Jenkins said.

Councilman Kevin P. Chavous, D-Ward 7, who chairs the council’s education committee, has pledged to fight for "a realistic operating budget" to help correct problems caused by UDC’s consistent under-funding.

"Without a realistic operating budget, UDC doesn’t stand a chance at improving its programs or its public image," Chavous said.

But Chavous also cited inherent problems with the city’s budgeting process, which requires his committee to essentially "rob" other city agencies under his committee’s purview – the public libraries, the public schools or the city’s recreation and parks programs – to increase UDC’s funding. Chavous noted that all of these agencies have suffered budget cuts in recent years and now require increased funding.

The city’s contribution to UDC’s budget increased to $45 million for fiscal 2002, up slightly from the $38 million allocated for fiscal 1996, after the control board took over and slashed the university’s funding. UDC’s enrollment plunged from 12,000 students in 1990 to 4,700 in 1996, after deep budget cuts forced faculty layoffs and a reduction in course offerings. UDC’s enrollment has gradually increased since then to slightly more than 5,000 students, according to the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

UDC’s lack of autonomy appears to be having at least some effect on its efforts to recruit a new president, according to sources who said one of three finalists already has turned down the job due to problems associated with the UDC Board of Trustees being unable to control the university’s finances.

Walter Broadnax, dean of American University’s School of Public Affairs, appears to be out of the running after he recently turned down UDC’s offer, the sources said. AU announced on Feb. 21 that Broadnax has accepted the presidency of Clark-Atlanta University in Georgia.

Copyright 2002, The Common Denominator