Report picks apart NCCU program

A UNC-system study finds omissions and circumventions in an unauthorized branch

N.C. Central University leaders who created and oversaw an unauthorized satellite campus at a suburban Atlanta megachurch gave students an improper tuition break, ignored several policies and kept poor and incomplete records, according to a critical new report issued Thursday by the 16-campus UNC system.

The report, discussed Thursday afternoon at a meeting of the audit committee of the UNC system's Board of Governors, is the result of two months of scrambling following the revelation that a series of academic programs NCCU was administering at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., had never been properly approved.

The agency that accredits NCCU never knew about it. That may mean federal financial aid NCCU gave to many of the 126 students who enrolled in the program over its four-year life will have to be sent back to the Department of Education. It isn't clear yet whether NCCU will have to pay back some or all of that money; New Birth students received more than $3 million in Pell Grants, Perkins loans and other financial aid, according to the report.

The report reveals that students in the New Birth program paid less tuition than is mandated by the UNC system. For example, the university charged New Birth students $296.10 per credit hour in 2007-08; the UNC system's proper rate for a nonresident distance education credit hour is $417.75. The total lost revenue from those tuition payments isn't specified in the report.

"While we missed out on some revenue, the bigger issue is that we didn't follow the established procedures," Chancellor Charlie Nelms said Thursday after briefing the audit committee, which met at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

The New Birth campus should have been vetted by campus and UNC-system boards and NCCU's accrediting agency, and the Department of Education should have been notified of its creation, according to the report. Those regulatory steps "were ignored or circumvented," it said.

The report doesn't place blame by name, but the chancellor in 2004 was James Ammons, now president at Florida A&M. The provost was Lucy Reuben, now a Duke professor, and Beverly Washington Jones, a dean at the time, signed off on some of the documents related to the program's creation. Jones succeeded Reuben as provost and was moved out of that position earlier this year by Charlie Nelms, the current chancellor.

The report claims sloppy and incomplete record-keeping hamstrung UNC system and NCCU officials who, in recent months, have tried to piece the saga back together.

The campus offered courses in business administration, hospitality and tourism, criminal justice and education.

Other report highlights:

* The pastor at the New Birth church is Eddie Long, an NCCU trustee. There is no evidence of a conflict of interest, the report states, because NCCU trustees never voted on the program.

* While no state money was directly used to fund the New Birth program, NCCU will send $55,426 back to the state as reimbursement for employee compensation and operating costs incurred by several NCCU business offices, the report states.

* NCCU has partnered with East Carolina University to create a program for 39 students whose college educations were interrupted when the program was abruptly shut down earlier this year. They would be able to complete their course work.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, NCCU's accrediting agency, concluded last month that the degrees earned by 25 students who graduated from the program are valid.

The agency ruled the education the New Birth students received was comparable to what a student on the main campus in Durham would receive.

"The students are innocent, trusting people who thought we had taken care of our business," Nelms said. "We had not."