Are You Lost or Found?: Recognizing the Wake up Call

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

© 2008 SYLVESTER FADAL. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/8/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4389-3636-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-4203-7(e)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER II

EARLY LIFE OF BISHOP REMBERT EDWARDS STOKES

CHAPTER III

THE RE-ACCREDITATION PERIOD: FROM 1956 TO 1965

CHAPTER IV

THE GOLDEN PERIOD: 1966 TO 1976

CHAPTER V

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

INSTRUMENT FOR THE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

APPENDIX B

PRESIDENT REMBERT EDWARDS STOKES’ FAMILY

APPENDIX C

THE UNIVERSITY’S FARM

APPENDIX D

APPENDIX E

APPENDIX F

APPENDIX G

RE-ACCREDITATION CELEBRATION IN 1962

APPENDIX H

APPENDIX I

PRESIDENT EMERITUS YVONNE WALKER TAYLOR, 1984-1988

APPENDIX J

PRESIDENT FLOYD H. FLAKE,

2002-2008

APPENDIX K

APPENDIX L

PRESIDENT JOHN HENDERSON,

1988-2002

APPENDIX M

DR. HANLEY ALFRED HICKEY

APPENDIX N

VICE PRESIDENT SAMUEL SALUS JACKSON

DEDICATION

This book is solemnly and respectfully dedicated to Bishop Vinton Randolph Anderson, Presiding Bishop of the Second Episcopal District of the AME Church. He was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Wilberforce University, in 1976 when President Rembert Edwards Stokes left Wilberforce after his election into the bishopric. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Payne Theological Seminary and he is retiring after 57 years of meritorious services in the AME Church.

He is known as a man of God who did so much for the advancement of God’s work. Throughout his ministry, he was earnestly devoted to the rich traditions and high calling of the AME Church. He freely gave himself and talents to the general progress and welfare of the Church. He is a learned Bishop, an eminent scholar, educator and author. He was described as a great apostle of ecumenism on the world scene. He is a devoted churchman who dedicated his mind, heart and soul to the noble service and leadership of the Church.

Since 1972 when he was elected the 92nd Bishop of the Church at the General Conference in Dallas, Texas, his ecumenical contributions were felt worldwide through his services as President of World Council of Churches, Chairman of the Committee on Religion and Society for the Global Economic Action Institute and Chairman of Worship and Liturgy for the Consultation on Church Union, to mention a few. He had presided over the 15th, 9th, 3rd, 5th and 2nd Episcopal Districts with great success.

Therefore, in high honor and with deep respect, sincere love, and admiration I dedicate this book to Bishop Vinton Randolph Anderson in recognition of his accomplishments during his ministry and that of his lovely and devoted wife, Mrs. Vivienne Anderson.

Gabriel Adebayo Omolewu, DBA., Ph.D.

FOREWORD

It is my pleasure and privilege to write the foreword to this splendid document. The Stokes’ family is appreciative of Dr. Gabriel Omolewu’s choice of topic for his dissertation. Dr. Omolewu was motivated by the paucity of materials on leadership techniques of black colleges and their presidents. This erudite study of my husband’s tenure as President at Wilberforce University reveals a dedicated pursuit of well established, realistic goals and effective ways to enhance Wilberforce, the sweetheart of African Methodism, its image, influence, and position, among other Universities and Colleges.

I enjoyed these many pages which made history come alive again for me. Events and activities which had been cubby holed or covered by leaps of time, became vibrant in consonance with my heartbeat. Dr. Omolewu’s comprehension of his topic has already added much solid information to the history of people at Wilberforce. Dr. Omolewu has written an invaluable document of the achievements of the presidency known as The Golden Years of Wilberforce University.

The author has employed his skills, energy, time knowledge, and insight to elaborate on his chosen subject. This invaluable contribution will be housed in the Wilberforce University Library, located at Stokes’ Center.

Dr. Nancy Philips Stokes, First Lady

Wilberforce University, 1956-1976.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank God for leading me to choose the topic of this study and for guiding me throughout the period of the study. It was through the grace of God that the study was possible and successfully completed.

I would like to thank the Chair of my doctoral committee, Dr. Dianne Wright; my advisor, Dr. William Klingele; the other members of the doctoral committee: Dr. Lathardus Goggins, Associate Dean of the Graduate School; Dr. Susan Olson, the Chair of my Department, and Dr. Fred Shultz. My thanks also go to the staff and the faculty of The University of Akron, the President of Wilberforce University, and the Library Director of Wilberforce University, Mrs. Jean Mulhern, the Associate Librarian, Mrs. Jacqueline Brown and their staff, and the participants in this study whose cooperation made the research efforts very successful.

I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to the family of Bishop Rembert Edwards Stokes for the permission they gave me to do this study. Most especially, I would like to thank Dr. Nancy Stokes and her daughter, Mrs. Debra Abraham, who were active participants in the study and who provided valuable information and whose cooperation made the study possible.

Special thanks go to my wife Elizabeth and our children: Daniel, Margaret, Samuel, Sarah, Rachel, Deborah and Jacob for their patience and overwhelming support throughout the period of this study. Rachel deserves special recognition for taking a lot of time out of her busy schedule of graduate work and using her computer skill on the publication of this book.

Gabriel Adebayo Omolewu, DBA., Ph.D.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Enrollment by class and sex in fall, 1956

Table 2. Fall enrollment by academic year, 1960-63

Table 3. Enrollment by college, class and sex, winter 1963

Table 4. Sources of Income, 1961

Table 5. Number of fee-paying students that board

members were to recruit

Table 6. Funds received, July 1962 - April 1963

Table 7: Median faculty salaries, 1957 - 1962

Table 8. Accounting record of Emery hall fire

Table 9. Budget for remedial program

Table 10: Actual registration figures, 1966 - 1972

Table 11: Tuition by academic year, 1966 - 1974

Table 12. Co-op rotation plan A

Table 13. Co-op rotation plan B

Table 14. Wilberforce University graduates, 1956-1976

Table 15. Financial aid recommendations for Wilberforce, 1970-71

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This study was conducted on the presidency of Bishop Rembert Edwards Stokes at Wilberforce University. It is a historical case study. The twenty years of Bishop Stokes’ presidency, from 1956 to 1976, were the golden years of the University, according to the President Emeritus Yvonne Walker Taylor who served the University for 33 years and was the president of the University from 1984 to 1998. His leadership was considered to have been very effective because of the achievements during his presidency. Such effectiveness, according to Cameron (1997), can be assessed using several factors including: the educational satisfaction of students, their academic development, the students’ career development, the students’ personal development, service to the community, the ability of the university to acquire resources, and the financial condition of the institution.

Wilberforce University has an incredible legacy. It is one of the oldest, private, liberal arts, coeducational, predominantly black, four-year

Colleges in the United States of America. It was named after the great abolitionist, William Wilberforce, a Member of Parliament (MP) from Yorkshire, England, who led the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Parliament. The University was incorporated by the Ohio Conference of African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in the office of Senator M. D. Gatch, a Senator in the General Assembly of Ohio, to provide higher educational opportunities for African Americans who could not otherwise afford the cost. The major objective, according to Daniel A. Payne, was to educate the Negro to plead his own cause (Crownwell, 1914).

The University was duly incorporated as Wilberforce University on August 30, 1856. This was the result of the efforts of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now United Methodist, when the Cincinnati Conference of the Church appointed a committee in September 1853, on the Evaluation of the Colored People. The committee recommended the establishment of a college with the purpose of elevating the entire colored race. On October 31, 1855 it was decided that the institution be called Ohio African University which was endorsed by the General Conference of the Church on May 22, 1856. On May 24, 1856, the first site at Tawawa Springs was purchased for the college. On August 26, 1856 a governing Board of twenty-three persons was selected for the University and on August 30, 1856, it was incorporated as Wilberforce University. The Board of Trustees of the University elected Professor Frederick Merrick of Ohio Wesleyan University as the President of the University on September 16, 1856. He declined to be the President but he continued to be the Vice President of the Board of Trustees.

Since there was no immediate need for a president, M. P. Gaddis served as the Principal of the Normal and Preparatory Departments until Reverend Richard S. Rust was elected to the Presidency in June 1858. The enrollment rose to 200 students of high and College grade within two years. The Civil War caused the enrollment and financial support to decline and the institution was closed on June 19, 1862.

In March 1863, Bishop Daniel A. Payne, of A.M.E. Church, purchased the property and turned it over on June 11, 1863 to the Pastor of A.M.E. Church of Zanesville, Ohio, James A. Shorter and the Principal of Eastern District Public School of Cincinnati, John G. Mitchell as agents of A.M.E. Church. On July 10, 1863, the University was newly incorporated again. Later that year, Union Seminary was closed and its interests were merged with those of Wilberforce (Wilberforce University, 1953).

The A.M.E. Church broke away from the white-controlled Methodist Episcopal Church. The University made rapid progress under the new auspices, but this was slowed down by the destruction of the main building by fire. On the night that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, Shorter hall, the main building of the University was burned down to the ground. It was believed that the arson was the evil work of white sympathizers.

During the second term of 1866-67, highly trained faculty members were hired and the instruction at the college level began. The first college class graduated in 1871. In the decade of the 1870s, the University was able to survive because of substantial donations received from individuals, philanthropic organizations and other similar sources. The Congress of United States made an appropriation of $28,000. Avery Estate contributed $10,000. The Chief Justice of the United States, Salmon P. Chase, who was a member of the Board of Trustees at that time, made a personal donation of $10,000. The Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Studies at the West and the American Unitarian Association made annual contributions for several years.

On March 19, 1887, the Ohio Legislation passed a law establishing as part of the University the combined Normal and Industrial Department under a separate Board of nine members. The governor of Ohio was to name five members of the Board and the A.M.E. Church was to name the remaining four members. The intention of the State government was to make the combined Normal and Industrial Department to be legally separate from Wilberforce University and also for the State to be in control of the Department. The state unit was to offer courses in vocational training and teacher training, while the Church unit was to provide liberal arts education. The State provided for the Combined Normal and Industrial Department financial support of $5,000 per year during 1887 and 1888. As from 1889, the annual budget of the Department was presented to the Ohio General Assembly for review and approval. Each of the 88 counties in Ohio was required to send a student to the University, tuition free, to ensure that everyone in Ohio benefited from the State’s investment.

The Federal government, in 1894 established the Department of Military Science and Tactics. During the following year, 1895, the work in Theology was organized as Payne Theological Seminary. In 1896, the State of Ohio adopted funding of the Combined Normal and Industrial department through direct taxation. This action left Wilberforce University to raise its own funds (Goggins, 1987).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was much expansion and development in the various divisions of the University. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provided many new courses of study. The combined Normal and Industrial Department became the College of Education and Industrial Arts. Payne Theological Seminary too was reorganized and the Department of Military Science and Tactics became the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

The University has always been what is generally known as a have not institution. Mainly the strained financial resources from the A.M.E. Churches and undependable meager tuition payments that were received from students, the majority of whom were from low-income families, supported it. The University was so poor that when Dr. Charles H. Wesley was invited to be the President of Wilberforce University, in 1932, the poor financial conditions of the institution scared him away. He hurriedly returned to his position at Howard University as a History professor. He returned to the University ten years later, however, in 1942 as president (Bower,444 1974).

When Dr. Wesley turned down the presidency of Wilberforce University in 1932, Dr. Richard R. Wright Jr. was appointed as the Acting President. During the four years 1932-1936, he developed different strategies for raising funds. One of them was the idea of the Book of a Million Names that listed names of people who contributed $1 to Wilberforce University. Unfortunately by the time he left the presidency and was elected into the bishopric in 1936 at the time there were less than 100,000 names in the book. During the period, 1936-1941 Dr. D. Ormonde Beaconfield Walker was the President of the University. He was known as a driving president because, once a goal was set, he directed everyone’s attention to the goal and made them work hard until it was achieved.

In 1941, the combined Normal and Industrial Department became the College of Education and Industrial Arts where most black students who could have enrolled in other Ohio public supported schools were sent for admission. In 1942, Dr. Wesley was nominated for the presidency of the University again. He turned the offer down the second time in ten years, but after some political tactics through Bishop R. R. Wright which made Dr. Wesley believe that everyone, including faculty, staff and students wanted Wesley at Wilberforce, he accepted the offer.

When Dr. Wesley became the President of Wilberforce University in 1942, there were 98 full-time faculty with 16 of them having Ph.D. By 1946, just two years latter, the number of full-time faculty increased to 120 with 26 having Ph.D. In that year there were 1,480 enrolled students. In 1947, the State withdrew the State supported College of Education and Industrial Art from the University. During the split, Wilberforce University lost both faculty, staff and students to the State Unit. The A.M.E. Church, faculty, staff and students of Wilberforce University and all supporters of the University were very bitter about this. Bishop Ransom showed his bitterness and those of others by saying, We are going to test in our courts whether the State of Ohio can use tax payers’ money to operate a Jim Crow institution (Brower, 1974). In the same year, after the split, the University re-organized College of Education and Business Administration. These two units were merged in 1949 with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In the 1947-48 school year, the College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce per court order, opened with 966 students and 97 faculty. The enrollment at Wilberforce University was 400 students with a faculty of 47. The budget for the College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce was $581,784 while that of Wilberforce University was $364,000. In April 1951, a bill changed the College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce to Central State University. It was put on equal footing with other public Colleges in Ohio by authorizing it to offer Bachelor of Arts degrees (Goggins, 1987).

The Wilberforce University has had less than 1000 students in enrollment except before the schism and a few years during Dr. Stokes’ presidency. The latter has represented an attractive student-faculty ratio of one to twenty. Today, degrees are offered in business, computer science, education, engineering, health services administration, the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

The University was first granted accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1939. In 1947, after state-supported programs were withdrawn from the University, accreditation was withheld (Goggins, 1987). The University regained its accredited status in 1962. It has retained accreditation without interruption ever since.

Payne Theological Seminary and Central State University were originally part of Wilberforce University. Central State University was started in 1947 with state resources withdrawn from Wilberforce University. Payne Theological Seminary was originally the Department of Religious Studies of the University, offering Bachelor’s and graduate degrees in Theology. When the University lost its accreditation because of, among other things, not having enough financial resources, reorganization ensued in which the Seminary was recognized as a separate institution. This reorganization enabled Wilberforce University to regain its accreditation.

The University’s mission statement is consistent with its purpose (Omolewu, 1992). The purpose of the University is to train African-American Christian scholars who will be able to think logically and develop a sense of social responsibility. Its mission is a commitment to provide relevant academically excellent higher education to African-Americans and to prepare them for leadership in today’s complex environment. As a Christian institution, Wilberforce University is concerned with the highest development of personality for the student through a broad education, specialized training and a philosophy of life based on sound personal and social values. As such, students are encouraged to:

1.) develop the Christian ideals of character and service;

2.) interpret the knowledge of the human race;

3.) comprehend the integration of all areas of human knowledge;

4.) use the English language with proficiency;

5.) read a modern language with reasonable competency;

6.) be competent in performing practical mathematical computations;

7.) utilize the scientific method in all life activities;

8.) maintain sound mental and physical health;

9.) become acquainted with and appreciative of Negro life and achievement, viewed through the perspective of world patterns; and

10.) Make a wise and valid choice of a vocational career and prepare thoroughly for a vocation (Wilberforce University, 1953).

Bishop Stokes became the president of Wilberforce University shortly after the decision of the historic case, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). This landmark case served as a cornerstone in the extensive struggle for equality of education of African-American children. The major goal was to produce, for the future, a great supply of educated Negros who would be able to deal confidently, intelligently, constructively and wisely with the unknown.

Bishop Stokes was formerly the Dean of Payne Theological Seminary, one of the two colleges of Wilberforce University. At that time the academic organization of the University included only two colleges, the College of Liberal Arts and Science, and Payne Theological Seminary. The College of Liberal Arts and Science offered four-year curricula leading to Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science in Education and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Through the pursuit of these curricula, students gained general college education, a preliminary training for the professions of law, medicine, dentistry, engineering, or professional training for public school teaching, the business occupations or music. The Payne Theological Seminary offered curricula designed especially to provide general background of culture, and special professional training for those who wish to enter the Christian ministry and other types of religious services. These curricula lead to the degree of Bachelor