 HBCN Digest, welcome back to another conversation with distinguished leaders of historically black colleges and universities. Today our distinguished guests are from the great Payne College with several monumental announcements over the last month or so to speak to their efforts on fundraising and accreditation and partnerships with major, major corporations in the area. Today's guests are Payne College Chairperson Michael Thurman, Payne College President Cheryl Evans-Jones and Provost Curtis Martin. So good morning to one and all lady and gentlemen. I appreciate the time you've made today. The big news obviously is Payne establishing accreditation with Trax and that's major, major news for the institution obviously, major news for that community as well. Madam President, I would start with you. There aren't many colleges that are able to say, you know, we were able to successfully negotiate, apply for accreditation even after ending your relationship with another association. Can you talk about the work that you and your team can make that possible and how the Payne community really contributed to the great success of getting in line with Trax? Yes. And first of all, let me thank you for having us as a part of the program today. We are, as you've said, accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, Trax as it's known by the acronym. And the accreditation culminated after several months of very intense work. We use the expression that the accreditors look at everything from the president to the parking lot. And so there's a set of standards that's pretty standard, if I may say, across the accrediting bodies and they look at things like governance, operational authority, academic programs, facilities, finances, everything, you name it. And so we had a team that led the effort, but certainly faculty, staff and students all played a role in making sure that we could successfully address the standards of Trax. And then Dr. Chairman Thurman, I should say, from a board perspective, you guys were centrally involved in heavy voices in the effort to get that done. What is it like from a board position in the application process and updating the community on information about that process and maintaining confidence from the community, from the business community, from alumni and students? Can you speak to how difficult or how easy that was and how it assisted in that effort to gain accreditation with Trax? First of all, thank you for this opportunity and thank you for the outstanding work that you do for the historical black colleges and universities. And as you know, because I followed your coverage, this was really more than a four-year effort that began right after, of course, we began to have issues and discussions with SACs about our accreditation with that agency. And over the next four-year period, many people, board members, business leaders, administrators, faculty and students all came together to continue to support the college and to never lose faith that at the end of the day we would be celebrating this very unique and treasured opportunity that we have with Trax. I want to thank of course Dr. Jones for providing outstanding leadership for her administration at this point in time. But that was a difficult day, but we never lost faith. There was some distressing and disappointing moments in this process, but we never lost faith, believing in paying college, believing in its history and its heritage and knowing that at the end of the day we would be successful. There were many business leaders who continued to support the college, even though our accreditation was threatened with SAC, never lost faith in the college, continued to contribute money, and those students who maintained enrollment in the college never lost faith. And so the one word, and I repeated it multiple times, the most important thing was that there were board members, administrators, faculty members, students, alumni, and friends who throughout this ordeal never lost faith in paying college. And ultimately that is why we were able to succeed and gain full accreditation with Trax. And then Dr. Martin from an academic affairs perspective, how valuable is that accreditation and that membership in the effort to build out programs, to attract grant dollars for research and development, even from the perspective of getting in stronger faculty, recruiting strong students, just from an academic affairs perspective, how much does that accreditation mean to you guys? Well, again, I would also like to offer my thanks for you giving us this opportunity. But if you had asked that as a multiple choice question on a test, I would have to have said all of the above. And that's simply because that is true. Just with the achievement of gaining Trax accreditation, yes, it is opening up the opportunity for new programs, yes, it does allow us to go for grants that we may not qualify because we were not accredited. Yes, it does allow us to get into school now because we are able to say we are accredited so we can now recruit our students. Yes, it does send a message to all of our clientele that paying college is able to meet the same criteria that any other institution is required to meet and that our accountability has been more than confirmed as we have gone through completing this Trax accreditation. Let's talk about some of those opportunities now because you guys are part of a consortium that is creating pipeline or professional development pipelines for some of your students and graduates. Talk a little bit about that. Yes, we are. In fact, there's a consortium with Tennessee State and the Harry, as you have mentioned in one of your earlier broadcasts and Payne College is a member of that and that program is geared toward allowing students to do a 2 plus 2 basically as it relates to engineering and it's also geared toward improving opportunities for females. Payne is the only institution I think that's outside of Tennessee that's a part of that and our president recently signed an MOU that establishes us as a full member of that consortium and that program is being led by Dr. Raul Peters and Dr. Anne Gay Nelson here at Payne College. And even with all the joy and celebration about accreditation and still the business of the college is moving forward as we can see this week there was an announcement by the president about an extension of the existing partnership with the Augusta National Golf Club where there will be a new scholarship for students and you talk a little bit about that partnership and how it has worked over years and blossomed to this new expansion into not only just the student support but also athletic support as well. Exactly. We are delighted about that for several years as you suggested the Augusta National Golf Club has provided support to Payne College roughly for about 20 or so years but we are expanding that partnership with the Augusta National and as it was announced on Monday from the Augusta National Golf Course the golf course is the Augusta National is establishing a scholarship to honor Lee Elder who was the first black to play in the Masters Golf Tournament. And what happens with that is that there will be an endowed scholarship and the scholarship will go to a male and a female golfer and they will also establish a women's golf team here at Payne College. So students will have the opportunity once things are up and running to come here and play golf in one of the biggest golf cities in the world and at the same time earn a degree from Payne College having received a quality education. Do you think, do you foresee that that partnership because golf is one of those sports in those industries that even in the midst of a pandemic has continued to do fairly well in terms of finance and being able to play and fans somewhat being able to access some of the tournaments. Do you see an expansion of that for Payne such that maybe not that it becomes intrinsically golf because Payne is a strong liberal arts institution but as Augusta National is a major corporate partner in the area do you think that there are opportunities where that expands maybe around golf or maybe around sports and hospitality management or other things how do you kind of see that relationship broadening even more. Well I think the doors are open for all sorts of opportunities. I think it will encourage students who want to play golf certainly on the women's side and on the men's side as well because they will be as I said in the best golf city in the world and I think that will be an attraction for students here and hopefully our partnership will include members or staff persons from the Augusta National who can interact with our students again we're still working out some of the details of that but I think it's going to be very exciting for us and for students who want to come here. Chairman, you mentioned faith a lot of times in your remarks and obviously that's something that is shared across the Payne community and it's shared within a corporate community as they're continuing to support the institution. What do you think or what do you see in terms of an executive position that Payne's new potential is because Payne has always been great, Payne has been around for more than 100 years, Payne has always offered a quality education and even in the midst of how trends are changing higher education this seems to give a renewal for what is possible for Payne. How do you see that I guess kind of fortifying in the next five to ten years in terms of what you think Payne will be able to do in terms of academics and enrollment and corporate engagement and those things? Well blessings are sometimes disguised in terms of conflict and turmoil and this accreditation fight that we've been engaged in including the COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a desire among the board and hopefully I believe the entire Payne College family to reassess and re-envision the future. We see this as an opportunity to rethink the mission, the goals and objectives of the college while we continue to stand fast on the foundation that has been built over the last 138 years and there is a connection. I want to go back to something Dr. Jones said. I was a senior at Payne College in 1975 when Lee Elder literally integrated the master's tuner man in Augusta and I was there and we have to remember Dr. Julius S. Scott who was a mentor and a friend of the late Dr. Julius S. Scott. The reason we have this relationship really is when Lee Elder was refused to be seated in a restaurant Dr. Scott opened up the campus to Lee Elder and provided food and support and encouragement and held the reception on campus for Lee Elder. I remember attending that reception as a senior at Payne College and it's Mr. Elder remembered that kindness that was extended by this college and by the late Dr. Scott which laid the foundation for what occurred last week at the Augusta National and that is why historically back colleges and universities are so important over the decades and over the centuries. We've never lost faith and I use that term again in the college and in what it stands for and more importantly the contribution that it will make going forward. This is an amazing moment to have lived through from 1975 when Dr. Scott hosted this amazing athlete on our campus to this week when he paid back or at least attempted to address that bit of kindness by reaching out and investing back in this institution. It's an amazing moment to have lived through it and witnessed it as a student and now as chair of the Board of Trustees. Our best days are yet to come. The future is bright for Payne College and one thing about when you go through the tough times you learn things and as a board member and I can speak for the board we are refocusing in terms of what our roles and responsibilities are. We almost lost Payne College literally. Let's just be clear and it was a distressing painful moment but we continue to work together. We continue to believe and to strategize and to make difficult decisions that allowed us to be on this call with you today celebrating our successes and I think it can be instructive for other institutions. Payne is not the only one who faces financial challenges. What we want to do is to be a beacon of hope and hopefully inspiration for other institutions to show them that no matter how difficult the pay might be that you can if you're willing to make the sacrifices overcome the challenges. That's a wonderful way to put it. It actually leads into my final question for all three of y'all. I mean with so much hard work over such a long and consistent period does it feel like you can just take a breath and say finally or do you feel like okay that's done it's time to go do something else like what is the feeling like because I think that people don't get how difficult it is to pour over hundreds and hundreds of pages of accreditation stuff and have these meetings and have these strategy sessions it's brilliant. And so that reached your goal does it feel like okay it's Thanksgiving we about to take off for a few days or is it like no we got we got a lot more stuff to do we're just getting started how does that what does that feel like. What I've told the team is that we can take a breath for just a minute at most of the day but the real work is yet to come we have much more to do and I truly believe that having received accreditation from Trats will help us in the work that's to come. So we just breathe for a minute pick up the mantle and keep going because as chair Thurman has said our best days are ahead but we have to make that so it won't just happen on its own so there's still a lot of work to do. And yes we've we've learned how to work hard we've learned that there's always morning is going to come but night will come after that and we keep looking forward to all of the morning because there are brighter days are here for paying college we have to place it back on the sound footing that it has always enjoyed so that we will not have to leave these challenges to those who come behind us. And Chairman we give you the last word. You know for the first time in over four years I had a piece of nice rest. The morning the day after the announcement and I had said to friends and classmates that I was I just could not accept losing paying college in my lifetime and so that was a moment of rest but now we have to institutionalize the lesson learned and I'm not I'm speaking about paying but I'm speaking about all of our historical black institutions you know even the accreditors said y'all have you all have a very strong academic program our academics were never in question right it was about the finances and one of my lessons is that our challenges was never whether that we didn't have enough money we just didn't have we didn't manage the resources that we did have in a proper way that will change and we have to institutionalize that and we have to maintain ourselves as an enrollment driven institution i.e. budgets have to be developed based on real enrollment uh numbers but we got a great team in place have a tremendous amount of faith and Dr. Jump on Dr. Martin and others in the administration you learn from your mistakes you don't dwell on them and you always look to the heels because that's the best that's the best and that's who we are and paying college existed for 138 years and we're not going anywhere no time so I gotta say it's remarkable man I think anytime that we can put voice and face to a a significant recovery effort we should try to do that because there is an indomitable spirit uh in Augusta Georgia you guys have come through a great deal uh with a great deal of grace um and even when folks are tough on you including me unfairly sometimes including me um you guys kept you guys kept at the wheel um and I think you guys are truly truly a model uh for the HBC community so I I am greatly appreciative uh of the time you made today and looking forward to to having you back on to talk about uh all of the tremendous things that are yet to come thank you all so much and again we'd like to thank you Mr. Carter for having us today to talk about paying college notice assessors and thank you for what you have done for paying college and all at HBCUs