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Paul Quinn College president Michael Sorrell
“We are embarking upon a journey to become one of America’s elite small colleges,” writes Paul Quinn College’s newly installed president, Michael J. Sorrell, on the school’s Web site. And he has a long, long way to go: As the Associated Press noted yesterday in a piece about the historically beleaguered college on Simpson Stuart Road:
This summer, the school was put on probation by its accrediting agency, the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It faulted the school for failing to meet standards in several areas, including faculty competence, financial stability and student achievement.
Enrollment is down by about 100 students to 600 this year. The endowment has shrunk to less than $5 million, Sorrell said, and the school has been running with operating deficits. Buildings are in need of repair, the campus roads are pocked by potholes, and students complain of bad food in the cafeteria and bug infestations in the dorms.
But the AP notes, as Fox News did recently, that Sorrell has changed one thing on the Quinn campus: Everyone’s sure dressing better at the school — which is to say, it’s business casual, except on Fridays, when jeans are allowed. No word if that applies to the bugs. –Robert Wilonsky
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