Hands Up – “Don’t Shoot”

A Contrast in Black and White

When a Caucasian police officer killed an unarmed Black man with raised hands in Ferguson, Missouri, a justice probe was launched. Let’s multiply those raised hands by symbolically placing them in a Paine College classroom.

How many “unarmed” black men and women stand on the threshold of being systematically killed by the documented abuses attributed to the George Bradley administration as revealed on the pages of this website? Are the raised hands of 800 students who are the victims of black-on-black crime committed in the context of failed collegiate leadership any less worthy of a Department of Justice investigation? Certainly, one conducted by the Department of Education is merited.

With regards to The Paine Project website’s Human Resources Mismanagement section, just how many of the sixty-plus faculty and staff Bradley has fired in his six year tenure is Black in comparison to white? And, with regards to strictly student affairs, what is the expulsion disparity contrasting the treatment of black students with white?

There is little doubt that if Paine College were a predominantly white institution (PWI), the revelations presented on this website would be more than sufficient for the Paine College Board of Trustees to demand Bradley’s resignation, or effect his immediate termination along with his entire executive staff. But, only because Black incompetence at Black institutions, and abusive behavior performed by Blacks against Blacks is viewed as being less reprehensible, is such tolerated with both white and black political indifference and indolence.

Bradley exists because he has been allowed to exist. The snake that slithers its way into the garden cannot be faulted for doing what it does when it’s allowed to remain untouched by the gardener’s hoe. So, those who whisper foul, and cry ouch when finally bitten have nobody to blame but themselves.

In the 132-year history of Paine College, George C. Bradley is the institution’s sixth Black president. Unfortunately, the legacy he will leave is not only an ancestral disgrace, but a disservice to all the Paine presidential leadership that’s come before.

Kendra

Paine College to Impement $2.4 Million in Cuts

According to an article appearing in the Augusta Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dr. Bradley has announced that the college will implement furlough days, salary reductions and layoffs to save $2.4 million over the next fiscal year.  (College outlines $2.4 million in cuts)  That amounts to roughly 10% of the college’s annual budget. According to the press release by Bradley, the cuts are necessary due to funding changes in federal and state financial aid programs to students and not to his ineptitude and mismanagement of the college’s fiscal affairs.  Yet football, which according to some sources is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, in the form of staff salaries, scholarships, equipment costs, travel and lodging, and other operating expenses, remains fully funded.

Looks like football is winning the race for funding dollars at Paine College.  Apparently, Dr. Bradley has chosen to de-fund faculty and staff salaries, employee pensions, and other essential expenditures critical to the educational mission of the college in favor of fully funding a fledgling football program.  (Expectations low for Paine football team) Currently, football is a drag on the budget of the college.  Consequently, we ask how can one justify defunding the core educational mission of the college in favor of extracurricular discretionary activities that add red ink to the bottom line of the financial statement.  Particularly, at a time when the college is in a fight for its existence financially and from an accreditation standpoint where the accrediting agency has cited sound financial management as a standard of accreditation which Paine fails to meet.  It makes no sense to us.  Only a person oblivious to the world of finance and money management would countenance such a course of action.

We Ask ….

Question #1:  Should a person with little to no financial acumen be at the helm of running a college in today’s challenging economic environment?

Question #2: Who is the chief financial officer of Paine College and what is her background, accomplishments, and experience?  Or do we even need to bother to find out because she is another in a long line of short timers, just warming a seat, waiting for the Bradley ax to fall on her like it did on her 4 predecessors.

P.S. – Odessa you are so right …

Question #3: How much of a salary reduction will Dr. George and Tina Bradley impose on themselves? Or is that a stupid question?