On May 31, 2024 Birmingham-Southern College will close its doors forever after a long history. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree from that institution in 1961, along with honors including membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa honorary fraternities. This is the second time an institution from which I received a degree has closed: in the early 1990s the Columbia University School of Library Service, from which I received a Masters of Library Science, was closed down by the larger institution. Maybe I’m the Typhoid Mary of institutions . . . But the handwriting had been starkly on the wall for both institutions for some time.
 | Birmingham-Southern College traces its roots back as far as 1856, when Southern University was formed in Greensboro, Alabama. On May 30, 1918 that school merged with Birmingham College, which dated back to 1898. Under its new name the college was located in Birmingham. That merger took place just 21 years before I was born, and what we called “Old Southern University” was still much talked about in the local community when I was a |
child. The main building lasted as a town landmark until 1973. At the time it was being used by the local private school set up to continue segregated education, and graduation exercises taking place in the auditorium had ended not long before a tornado destroyed the facility.
Both of these old schools had roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church. When I attended 1957-1961 it was considered a major small liberal arts college, with emphasis on liberal. Well, the students tended to be so and some of the faculty, but I think not the institution itself. Case in point: not long after I graduated a young woman named Marti Turmipseed who had participated in lunch-counter sit-ins in Birmingham was suspended because her political and moral actions violated school rules. Marti was pardoned some decades later, just about the time when her cohort of graduates would have been reaching the age when they might leave donations to the college in their wills. Didn’t do her any good, for she and her son had been killed in a car wreck some time earlier.
| I remember BSC as a place where I might speak my own growing thoughts about racial matters openly without fear of reprisal. At least not immediately. I remember that when a petition against segregation was signed by many students and sent to Governor George Wallace he had the list of names photocopied and distributed to employers in the state. |  |
In my day the school had no Black students. There were a few Browns, primarily young men from Cuba. The fall before Castro took over I had a Cuban roommate. He and his Cuban friends were thrilled with recent developments when they left to go home for Christmas holidays. None of them returned.
Do I recall my time at BSC fondly? Yes and no. My first roommate was a sophomore whom I liked tremendously, and through him and his friends on the floor I began to be drawn into a social fraternity. I consulted faculty members as to whether I should join, and they seemed to think it was a good idea. I joined. Mistake. I should have remained free to make my own friends at BSC and not have to be constrained by fake brotherhood. I hated the social aspect of it all. I went home as often as possible on weekends to avoid those parties. And the roommate moved out after one semester. I learned that the fraternity placed members in rooms that would be shared with freshmen just to seduce them into joining. They did want me: I was a National Merit Scholarship winner and was thought likely to help the grade-point average of the fraternity. I was a trusting innocent, but I learned to distrust.
Do I recall my time at BSC fondly? Yes and no. My first roommate was a sophomore whom I liked tremendously, and through him and his friends on the floor I began to be drawn into a social fraternity. I consulted faculty members as to whether I should join, and they seemed to think it was a good idea. I joined. Mistake. I should have remained free to make my own friends at BSC and not have to be constrained by fake brotherhood. I hated the social aspect of it all. I went home as often as possible on weekends to avoid those parties. And the roommate moved out after one semester. I learned that the fraternity placed members in rooms that would be shared with freshmen just to seduce them into joining. They did want me: I was a National Merit Scholarship winner and was thought likely to help the grade-point average of the fraternity. I was a trusting innocent, but I learned to distrust.
What I loved was the education I got. I had some spectacularly gifted and charismatic teachers. Mr. Richebourg Gaillard McWilliams taught freshman English and creative writing and was my faculty advisor. He hired me to assist him in grading papers. Mr. because he lacked a PhD, and he insisted on the Mr. Dr. Egbert Sydnor Ownbey taught more advanced courses in the English department, and my 2 semesters of Shakespeare under him remain among my best educational experiences. In History of Philosophy, History of Religion, Art History, and Biology I had wonderful teachers.
During my second year the college created something called President’s Scholars in which particularly promising students were invited to participate. I was one of them. We read works outside the regular curriculum and were led in discussions by various faculty members. The discussion I recall most fondly came after we were instructed to read both Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, after which the campus expert on Romantic literature discussed the novel from the viewpoint of the poet’s literary theories as exemplified in the poem. Thrilling.
At the time BSC had a fine pre-med course of study, and the finest teacher among them was the fellow who taught me Biology. He was known to be gay among the male students, and it was talked-about truth that his valued recommendations for medical school might be assured by succumbing to his sexual interest. As one of my fraternity brothers said, “Small price to pay to get into med school!” He later got into trouble and was dismissed. No, not at the college. He was arrested for solicitation in the men’s room of the bus station downtown.
The Philosophy and Religion courses I took were wonderful. No, not Sunday school lessons by any means. Philosophical history was chronoligical, sensible enough, and each philosophic idea was taught so brilliantly that students fell in love with it until it was displaced by the next big idea down the line that usually reacted against its predecessor. The course in Religious history I recall because it made no bones about the fact that so much of our religious faith is based not so much on the Word of God or the Teachings of Jesus but on what church-based committees of men decided later. There were lots of pre-ministerial students in both courses, and I firmly believe that a major thrust behind these courses was to make students think and doubt while they were students and not delay that process until they became preachers.
During my second year the college created something called President’s Scholars in which particularly promising students were invited to participate. I was one of them. We read works outside the regular curriculum and were led in discussions by various faculty members. The discussion I recall most fondly came after we were instructed to read both Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, after which the campus expert on Romantic literature discussed the novel from the viewpoint of the poet’s literary theories as exemplified in the poem. Thrilling.
At the time BSC had a fine pre-med course of study, and the finest teacher among them was the fellow who taught me Biology. He was known to be gay among the male students, and it was talked-about truth that his valued recommendations for medical school might be assured by succumbing to his sexual interest. As one of my fraternity brothers said, “Small price to pay to get into med school!” He later got into trouble and was dismissed. No, not at the college. He was arrested for solicitation in the men’s room of the bus station downtown.
The Philosophy and Religion courses I took were wonderful. No, not Sunday school lessons by any means. Philosophical history was chronoligical, sensible enough, and each philosophic idea was taught so brilliantly that students fell in love with it until it was displaced by the next big idea down the line that usually reacted against its predecessor. The course in Religious history I recall because it made no bones about the fact that so much of our religious faith is based not so much on the Word of God or the Teachings of Jesus but on what church-based committees of men decided later. There were lots of pre-ministerial students in both courses, and I firmly believe that a major thrust behind these courses was to make students think and doubt while they were students and not delay that process until they became preachers.
| My sense over time is that this approach to religious thought did not sit well with Methodist leaders in the state. After all, it was they who had de-frocked (or whatever you do to Methodist preachers) Mari Turnipseed’s father for his anti-segregation beliefs. My sense is that church support for the college did diminish over time, and I wonder if the liberal leaning of |  |
the school was part of the cause. Recent excitements in the Methodist Church have not caused me to change that belief.
So why did the school eventually go belly-up? Lots of reasons, I imagine. Much blame seems to be placed on the economic downturn of the first decade of this century. Endowments lost value. But I strongly suspect bad management by the college also contributed. One example: Funds designated for scholarships were placed on the income side of the balance sheet, disguising to some extent the true financial situation. I hope that as the failure of this institution is studied there will be detailed examination of its books over time. There were bad administrative decisions. Why try to start a football team when Alabama already had more than it needs? It takes lots of money to start such a program, and any resulting financial bump will be years away.
Am I sorry to see the school go? Yes. Am I surprised? No. In 2022 I lost 2 of my best friends locally. The first had been in serious decline for over a year. The second, while having suffered possibly from COVID earlier in the year was much improved in body and spirit. The second was a surprise. The first, not so much. I had watched the process of his dying for over a year. The passing of BSC is like that earlier death.
In this institutional death I find I have the most sympathy for the students. Yes, the college is trying to help them find new homes, but their present scholarship funds will not accompany them. I am sorry for the part of town surrounding the college: All that empty space cannot help but attract low-lifes. I am sorry for the larger city and the state: The school did apparently add a lot to the wealth of both.
The state had passed legislation during the last year to assist private institutions such as the late Judson College in Marion and Birmingham-Southern, loans toward which were in the hands of state treasurer Young Boozer III. Boozer declined the loan to BSC on the grounds that it was a bad risk for the Alabama taxpayers’ money. Then a new bill was introduced that would remove that power from him and place it in the hands of the director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. The bill did not receive compelling support from legislators, and it seemed that Governor Key Ivy did not guarantee that she would sign such a bill. Boozer’s testimony against this new bills seems to have been persuasive.
Earlier this week school’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to close the school, students and staff receiving formal notice shortly after.
Historically the school had been highly ranked nationally among liberal arts colleges of its size and mission. In the last decade or so those rankings had been slipping. Let’s face it, liberal arts education is not having its finest moment in people’s eyes, for various reasons. Applications and enrollment were dropping. The dire financial situation was becoming known. I cannot imagine that parents were eager to support a new high school graduate in any desire to attend BSC. My bet is that staff were looking seriously and eagerly for openings elsewhere. Fewer students and declining faculty. Both, I think, should be viewed as symptoms, not as cause. I’ll bet that wills providing for the college were growing fewer. The corpse didn’t smell yet, but there was a whiff of dying in the sickroom air.
To all things there is a season. A time to live, a time to die . . .
That time has now come for Birmingham-Southern College.
Now is the time for autopsy. We need to study why this death did happen.
So why did the school eventually go belly-up? Lots of reasons, I imagine. Much blame seems to be placed on the economic downturn of the first decade of this century. Endowments lost value. But I strongly suspect bad management by the college also contributed. One example: Funds designated for scholarships were placed on the income side of the balance sheet, disguising to some extent the true financial situation. I hope that as the failure of this institution is studied there will be detailed examination of its books over time. There were bad administrative decisions. Why try to start a football team when Alabama already had more than it needs? It takes lots of money to start such a program, and any resulting financial bump will be years away.
Am I sorry to see the school go? Yes. Am I surprised? No. In 2022 I lost 2 of my best friends locally. The first had been in serious decline for over a year. The second, while having suffered possibly from COVID earlier in the year was much improved in body and spirit. The second was a surprise. The first, not so much. I had watched the process of his dying for over a year. The passing of BSC is like that earlier death.
In this institutional death I find I have the most sympathy for the students. Yes, the college is trying to help them find new homes, but their present scholarship funds will not accompany them. I am sorry for the part of town surrounding the college: All that empty space cannot help but attract low-lifes. I am sorry for the larger city and the state: The school did apparently add a lot to the wealth of both.
The state had passed legislation during the last year to assist private institutions such as the late Judson College in Marion and Birmingham-Southern, loans toward which were in the hands of state treasurer Young Boozer III. Boozer declined the loan to BSC on the grounds that it was a bad risk for the Alabama taxpayers’ money. Then a new bill was introduced that would remove that power from him and place it in the hands of the director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. The bill did not receive compelling support from legislators, and it seemed that Governor Key Ivy did not guarantee that she would sign such a bill. Boozer’s testimony against this new bills seems to have been persuasive.
Earlier this week school’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to close the school, students and staff receiving formal notice shortly after.
Historically the school had been highly ranked nationally among liberal arts colleges of its size and mission. In the last decade or so those rankings had been slipping. Let’s face it, liberal arts education is not having its finest moment in people’s eyes, for various reasons. Applications and enrollment were dropping. The dire financial situation was becoming known. I cannot imagine that parents were eager to support a new high school graduate in any desire to attend BSC. My bet is that staff were looking seriously and eagerly for openings elsewhere. Fewer students and declining faculty. Both, I think, should be viewed as symptoms, not as cause. I’ll bet that wills providing for the college were growing fewer. The corpse didn’t smell yet, but there was a whiff of dying in the sickroom air.
To all things there is a season. A time to live, a time to die . . .
That time has now come for Birmingham-Southern College.
Now is the time for autopsy. We need to study why this death did happen.
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