Education

St. Augustine's in crisis: A timeline to its loss of accreditation and financial struggles

St. Augustine's University asked students to move out by April 3, 2024, and switched to remote learning. That is the latest attempt to save money in an ongoing financial crisis at the school.

Posted 2024-05-03T15:37:34+00:00 - Updated 2024-05-04T10:00:00+00:00

St. Augustine's: How we got here

Joseph Ochoa

, WRAL multiplatform producer

St. Augustine’s University asked students to move out by April 3, 2024, and switched to remote learning. That is the latest attempt to save money in an ongoing financial crisis at the school.

In March 2024, a group of alumni sent the Board of Trustees a resolution demanding their resignation. The resolution also called for an investigation to uncover the root cause of the school’s financial issues.

Did St. Augustine’s University lose accreditation?

The university is fighting a challenge to its accreditation for a third time. Accreditation is the official, formal and independent process by which universities demonstrate that they meet quality standards.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges ( SACSCOC) is the agency that accredits St. Augustine’s University.

In December 2022, the SACSCOC put the university on probation because the university failed to comply with accreditation requirements regarding finances, governing board characteristics and federal and state responsibilities.

Just over a year later, SACSCOC alerted the university that it was in danger of losing its accreditation.

On Feb. 27, 2024, the SACSCOC Board of Trustees denied a university appeal and informed St. Augustine’s that it would lose its accreditation.

Saint Augustine's Board of Trustees Chair James Perry said the university would fight the board's decision.

"We will stop at nothing to ensure that SAU maintains its accreditation," Perry said. "We are experiencing one of the most important moments in the institution's history. Our charge to everyone associated with the university is to comply with all policies and procedures, advance the institution's mission and division, and work collectively to place SAU back in good standing with SACSCOC."

According to the association’s policy, the university will remain an accredited institution on probation during the appeal process.

In a written statement on March 1, 2024, Interim president Dr. Marcus Burgess assured students, faculty and staff that the university will remain accredited as the school continues to address the board’s decision in the courtrooms, adding that the Class of 2024 would graduate with a degree from an accredited university. He admitted the school is in a "very dire" situation but said it will not shut down even as it fights to maintain its accreditation.

What happens if St. Augustine’s University loses accreditation?

According to the U.S. Department of Education, schools must maintain accreditation by a nationally-recognized accrediting agency to participate in federal student aid programs. Students cannot get federal financial aid when a school loses its accreditation.

Academic consultant Dr. Christine Hall said some students may not stay, and others would not apply if they don’t believe the university can remain accredited.

In addition to the loss of prestige from a loss of accreditation, any loss of enrollment means a loss of revenue for the university.

St. Augustine’s University faced accreditation peril in 2014 after the then-university president, Dianne Suber, was fired one month before her planned retirement. Two years later, SACSCOC placed the school on probation.

The school restructured its finances, and by the end of 2018, the school was removed from probation and became fully accredited again.

Is St. Augustine’s University bankrupt?

While the school has not officially declared bankruptcy, it faces an uphill battle getting its finances back on track.

"The issues we face did not begin yesterday, but I assure the community we are working feverishly to structure a cogent and viable plan to extricate this venerable institution," Burgess said.

This is not the first time the school has been in danger of closing its doors due to financing.

In 2014, the school was scrutinized for losing $3 million in tuition revenue due to falling enrollment at the time. A contractor also filed a lean against the school for over $675,000 owed for work on the school’s football stadium. The lien has since been settled.

After regaining accreditation in 2018, the school saw financial stability.

The school did not face dire financial consequences again until December 2023, when the SACSCOC rescinded the school's accreditation.

In pay periods in November and December, the university alerted employees it was delaying payroll deposits.

Since December, WRAL Investigates has uncovered the scope of the financial trouble the school was in, which included:

July 2023: A contractor filed a $15,000 lien for unpaid work on the university’s chapel.
In October 2023, Wellfleet Insurance said the university owed almost $430,000 for deductibles on student health insurance plans.
In October 2023, according to the register of deeds, Saint Augustine's University took out a $7 million line of credit.
In October 2023, the North Carolina Division of Employment Security issued a notice of delinquency for not paying unemployment taxes of nearly $27,000.
In December 2023, FieldTurf USA filed a $598,000 lien against the school for failing to pay for a new artificial turf field.
A contractor also filed a civil complaint for $8,000 for consulting services.
The IRS filed a $7.9 million lien against Saint Augustine's University for unpaid taxes dating back to the end of 2020.

In December, Burgess told WRAL News, "From a financial standpoint, it’s dire times right now. We’ve had to make tough decisions on who we pay and how we pay them.”

In early 2024, employees told WRAL News they hadn't been paid for multiple pay periods.

Students at the school also told WRAL News they did not receive their tuition reimbursement checks from the school in the spring 2024 semester, with some saying it happened to them in the fall semester as well.

Katie Abernethy with the Noble Law Firm told WRAL News if the school misses more paychecks, it could open the school to another range of financial and legal problems.

“I think a class action lawsuit is pretty readily foreseeable here,” she said.

Burgess says the university has hired a financial consulting team and is meeting with the IRS and others owed money by the school.

The school also received several large financial donations from former students hoping to keep the school open.

St. Augustine’s fires football coach after just seven games

St. Augustine’s fired head football coach Howard Feggins in October 2023 after seven games and seven losses. The university attributed the decision to the fact that Feggins allowed ineligible players on the field.

Feggins blasted back – first in a news conference and, in December 2023, in a lawsuit that alleges he was intimidated into silence when bringing up concerns with how the football program was run. Feggins claims university officials told him "to keep his mouth shut" about issues that included:

The university didn't reimburse football recruits for campus visits.
The university refused to pay laundry bills for football players' uniforms.
The university risked the health of its student-athletes by refusing to provide the football team with full-time athletic trainers and/or necessary medical treatments.
The university refused to provide adequate meals for its student-athletes.
The university didn’t obtain a Certificate of Insurance for its football players until September 15, 2023, a day before the program's third game of the 2023 season.

St. Augustine’s Fires legendary track coach

In 2020, St. Augustine’s fired George Williams. Williams was the track & field coach for the school, where he won 39 national titles as head coach.

Williams and former interim president Gaddis Faulcon were among four former employees who sued the university for wrongful termination.

According to Williams’ attorney, the school forced Williams to choose between taking a 50% pay cut and moving into a new position as athletic director or leaving the university.

The lawsuit claimed three members of the school’s Board of Trustees - Brian Boulware, James Perry and Maria Lumpkin - “operate the university in bad-faith manner designed to create fear and intimidation” among the school’s employees.

Faulcon claimed in the suit that Boulware, Perry and Lumpkin pressured him into engaging in “age discrimination and other unlawful conduct” as a condition of his contract renewal.

Joining Faulcon and Williams on the suit was the school’s former general counsel, Kyle Brazile, and the school’s manager of facilities and construction, Clarence King.

King claimed he discovered the university was “potentially misappropriating government funds,” and Boulware, Perry and Lumpkin fired him after he reported those discoveries.

Brazile claimed that he acted as a whistleblower, raising issues about the treatment of Williams and Faulcon, among others, and that the named board members sought to remove him afterward.

Who is the president of St. Augustine’s University?

There is no permanent university president as of April 2024, but the school has seen numerous changes at the top in the last five years.

Dr. Everett Ward, who helped the school navigate its financial troubles in 2016, left the university in 2019 after taking over in 2014.

During that time, according to the university, the school was removed from probation by the SACSCOC and nearly doubled donations to the school.

The school introduced Faulcon as interim president and denied that the board forced Ward out of office.

“You can't have two presidents," Perry said at a news conference introducing Faulcon.

In July 2020, the university hired Irving Pressley McPhail as university president. McPhail passed away a few months later due to complications with the COVID-19 virus, and the university promoted his wife, Dr. Christine McPhail, to university president in Feb. 2021.

Christine McPhail served as president for nearly two years before the university fired her in Dec. 2023.

McPhail said she was shocked by the decision.

"I feel betrayed because that was not the relationship that I had with the Board [of Trustees]," McPhail said to WRAL News. "I worked aggressively with the team at Saint Augustine's University. We were rebuilding relationships throughout the community."

According to McPhail, the decision stemmed from a contentious board meeting in October where she said a board member berated her and another colleague. That led McPhail to file a formal complaint.

"A few days later ... [James] Perry, our board chair, asked me to recant the complaint, and I refused," McPhail said. "After that, he told me he needed it to go away."

In a statement, the Board of Trustees denied the allegations.

"The Board denies the unfounded allegations Dr. McPhail has made against the University, and the Board is prepared to defend itself and the institution," the statement reads in part.

The university then hired Marcus Burgess as its interim president. Burgess previously served as vice president of institutional advancement at Claflin University in South Carolina.