Fisk University

Fisk University

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Former names	The Fisk Freed Colored School
Motto	Her sons and daughters are ever on the altar
Type	Private, HBCU
Established	1866
Affiliation	United Church of Christ (historically related)
Chairman	Robert W. Norton
President	Frank L. Sims (interim president)
Provost	Rodney S. Hanley
Academic staff	70
Students	800
Location	Nashville, Tennessee , USA
Campus	Urban, 40 acres (16 ha)
Colors	Gold and Blue
Nickname	Bulldogs
Affiliations	UNCF ORAU CIC
Mascot	The Fisk Bulldog
Website	www.fisk.edu
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Fisk University is a historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The 40-acre (160,000 m²) campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1930, Fisk was the first African-American institution to gain accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Accreditations for specialized programs quickly followed.

History

University namesake Clinton B. Fisk

A class c. 1900

In 1866, six months after the end of the American Civil War, leaders of the northern American Missionary Association (AMA) – John Ogden, Reverend Erastus Milo Cravath, field secretary; and Reverend Edward Parmelee Smith – founded the Fisk Free Colored School, for the education of freedmen. AMA support meant the organization tried to use its sources across the country to aid education for freedmen. Enrollment jumped from 200 to 900 in the first several months of the school, indicating freedmen's strong desire for education, with ages of students ranging from seven to seventy. The school was named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen's Bureau, who made unused barracks available to the school, as well as establishing the first free schools for white and black children in Tennessee. In addition, he endowed Fisk with a total of $30,000. The American Missionary Association's work was supported by the United Church of Christ, which retains an affiliation with the university. Fisk opened to classes on January 9, 1866.

With Tennessee's passage of legislation to support public education, leaders saw a need for training teachers, and Fisk University was incorporated as a normal school for college training in August 1867. Cravath organized the College Department and the Mozart Society, the first musical organization in Tennessee. Rising enrollment added to the needs of the university. In 1870 Adam Knight Spence became principal of the Fisk Normal School. To raise money for the school's education initiatives, his wife Catherine Mackie Spence traveled throughout the United States to set up mission Sunday schools in support of Fisk students, organizing endowments through the AMA. With a strong interest in religion and the arts, Adam Spence supported the start of a student choir. In 1871 the student choir went on a fund-raising tour in Europe; they were the start of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. They toured to raise funds to build the first building for the education of freedmen. They raised nearly $50,000 and funded construction of the renowned Jubilee Hall, now a designated National Historic Landmark. When the American Missionary Association declined to assume the financial responsibility of the Jubilee Singers, Professor George L. White, Treasurer of the University, took the responsibility upon himself and started North in 1871 with his troupe. On April 12, 1873, the Jubilee Singers sailed for England where they sang before a fashionable audience in the presence of the Queen, who expressed her gratification at the performance.

During the 1880s Fisk had an active building program, as well as expanding its curriculum offerings. By the turn of the 20th century, it added black teachers and staff to the university, and a second generation of free blacks entered classes.

From 1915 to 1925, Fayette Avery McKenzie was President of Fisk. McKenzie's tenure, before and after World War I, was during a turbulent period in American history. In spite of many challenges, McKenzie developed Fisk as the premier all Black university in the United States, secured Fisk’s academic recognition as a standard college by the Carnegie Foundation, Columbia University and the University of Chicago, raised a $1 million endowment fund to ensure quality faculty and laid a foundation for Fisk’s accreditation and future success.

In 1947 Fisk heralded its first African-American president with the arrival of Charles Spurgeon Johnson. Johnson was a premier sociologist, a scholar who had been the editor of Opportunity magazine, a noted periodical of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1952, Fisk was the first predominantly black college to earn a Phi Beta Kappa charter. Organized as the Delta of Tennessee Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society that December, the chapter inducted its first student members on April 4, 1953.

From 2004 to 2013, Fisk was directed by its 14th president, the Honorable Hazel O'Leary, former Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton. She was the second woman to serve as president of the university. On June 25, 2008, Fisk announced that it had successfully raised $4 million during the fiscal year ending June 30. It ended nine years of budget deficits and qualified for a Mellon Foundation challenge grant. However, Fisk still faced significant financial hardship, and claimed that it may need to close its doors unless its finances improve.

H. James Williams, served as president from February 2013 to September 2015. Williams had previously been dean of the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and, before that, an accounting professor at Georgetown University, Florida A&M and Texas Southern University. Williams stepped down in September 2015.

Campus

Fisk University Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Location	Roughly bounded by 16th and 18th Aves., Hermosa, Herman and Jefferson Sts. Nashville, Tennessee
Architectural style	Italianate; Queen Anne
NRHP Reference #	78002579
Added to NRHP	February 9, 1978

Jubilee Hall, which was recently restored, is the oldest and most distinctive structure of Victorian architecture on the 40 acre (160,000 m²) Fisk campus.

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  Students and teachers in training school (between 1890 and 1906)

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  Theological Hall, c. 1900

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  Jubilee Hall

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  Fisk Memorial Chapel

Music, art, and literature collections

Jubilee Hall

Fisk University is the home of a music literature collection founded by the noted Harlem Renaissance figure Carl Van Vechten.

Alfred Stieglitz Collection

Stieglitz’s wife, Georgia O’Keeffe was appointed as Executrix of his estate, upon his death in 1946. The Last Will and Testament of Alfred Stieglitz declared that it was his intent, wish, and desire, that all of the works of Art of his estate (as well as whatever liquid assets his estate possessed; to use in the protection and preservation of those artworks, in perpetuity); be gifted to non-profit corporations (e.g., libraries, museums, educational institutions), for the purpose as stated in the Will; and under the terms and conditions of the Will; to forever, promote the study and interpretation of Modern Art.

With respect to Stieglitz’s wife (Georgia O’Keeffe) then still living; the Will granted her immediate Life Tenancy. Thereby making her the owner and custodian of his entire estate (as his lawful wife), for the duration of her life. And thus, upon Stieglitz’s death, there was no question of custody, or superintending responsibility for the works, while in preparation for their disposition in accordance with the terms and conditions of his Will.

O'Keeffe spent three years meticulously completing the assembly, review and cataloguing of all of his artworks, in preparation for her executing the terms and conditions of Stieglitz's Last Will & Testament; and O'Keeffe petitioned the New York State Court (and was granted its approval) to become the estate's Executrix; under the laws and authority of the courts of the state of New York. In 1949, she facilitated the bequest and apportionment of 99 artworks from the estate in fulfillment of the terms of the Last Will & Testament of Alfred Stieglitz. She also soon afterword (on her own behalf; and as a painter of international renown, in her own right), made an outright gift of two of her own works to the school; and, gifted those works upon terms similar to those of the Stieglitz bequest; with the additional requirement that those works were to forever be known as; and always displayed as, works in the Stieglitz Collection (authored by O'Keeffe) at Fisk University. All the works were subsequently placed on permanent display at the University's Carl Van Vechten Galleries.

In 2005, mounting financial difficulties led the University trustees to vote to sell two of the paintings, O'Keeffe's "Radiator Building" and Marsden Hartley's "Painting No. 3". (Together these were estimated to be worth up to 45 million U.S. dollars.) However, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the legal successor in interest of her estate, sued to stop the sale; and, to seek the retrocession of Stieglitz’s entire bequest to Fisk (which O'Keeffe had done as Executrix of Stieglitz's estate) back to the O’Keefe Museum on the basis that the original bequest's terms (in the Stieglitz Will) did not allow the beneficiary of the Stieglitz bequest to ever sell or divide collection as it had been gifted. This condition was done in fulfillment of the donor’s (Stieglitz's) intent that the artworks (as organized and donated as a collective body of work) were first and foremost expressly assembled, collated, and gifted, as a conscious, educative act; to promote the study of the origins of Modern Art in America; at whatever educational institution to whom they had been gifted; and in perpetuity.

The Attorney-General (AG) of Tennessee also filed suit. His challenge was unconnected to the interests the O’Keeffe Museum. The AG intervened on behalf of Tennessee and its responsibility to any bequestor (Stieglitz) to take care that the terms and conditions of his/her last Will & Testament were adhered to; as they related to the contemporary and perpetual responsibilities of any recipient (the University) of the bequest (the donated artwork), that was domiciled within the jurisdiction of the state. The AG interpreted his responsibility to require the State to oppose any attempt to move (permanently or even temporarily) the collection; (in whole, or in part), from Tennessee. As this would, in his judgment, violate two terms of the donor’s bequest. The AG believed that as a matter of public policy charitable bequests were recognized in law because of their beneficial public purpose of promoting and sustaining under the color of law, the perpetual authority, and the immortal power of state sovereignty, protecting acts of charitable bequests in decedent’s estates, in perpetuity.

The terms of the Stieglitz’s bequest as viewed by the Tennessee AG, were as follows. First that the bequest (to the recipient) was to be forever indivisible, once gifted. Prior to their gifting, the works were organized and collated to achieve an instructive, and educational purpose, promoting the study of modern art; wherever, and to whomever, the works were eventually gifted. Their academically careless, or financially driven dismemberment of the gifted collection (after their charitable bequest), would defeat that purpose. Second, the choice of Tennessee’s acknowledged center of higher educational endeavor (Nashville, the “Athens of the South”) as the geographic home of the collection, could only be interpreted as being consonant with the intent of the donor; that the educational purpose of the donation was clearly intended to be met by its location in an acknowledged center, for study in the Western European academic traditions, in the Fine Arts, and in Art History. Fisk University, from its inception in Nashville, had fought and built itself up to be such a center.

At the end of 2007 a plan to share the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to earn money was being fought in court by the O'Keeffe Museum. The O'Keeffe Museum's lawsuit failed on appeal, and was withdrawn. The Museum was found to not have standing (law) in a lawsuit, as O'Keeffe herself had formally renounced and surrendered her (and therefore her successors as well) interest as Life Tenant and Executrix of artworks thus gifted to the beneficiaries over fifty years earlier. Thus no residuary interest (for her estate) had existed when she died.

While the AG’s suit continued to have standing, it had to be made consonant with the reality of the cy-près doctrine as that doctrine applied to the current and long-term financial situation of Fisk University. The doctrine, (which applies to charitable trusts, (e.g., Fisk University’s Stieglitz Collection) applies where the original particular purpose of the trust (or its explicit terms and conditions) have become impossible or impracticable (for the grantee to fulfill); and, where the terms of the trust itself, do not specify what is to happen (if, and/or) when, such a situation arises.

Under the doctrine, when this situation occurs a Court (County Chancery Court in Tennessee), may modify the application of the donor’s terms (in their execution); recognizing that, so long as the donor’s underlying intent continues to be satisfied to the maximum extent possible (as the goal); modifications to the explicit terms of the bequest may be made and found to be in order; and not violations of the terms of the bequest to the recipient.

In October 2010, the Court ruled that a 50% stake in the collection could be sold to Crystal Bridges if modifications to the contract were made so that the University could not lose its interest in the collection, nor could the joint venture holding ownership of the collection between the University and Crystal Bridges be based in Delaware (or outside Tennessee Courts jurisdiction). The modified agreement would allow the works to stay at the University until 2013 and then begin a two-year rotation with Crystal Bridges. In April 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to allow the sale to move forward. A few months later on August 2, The Davidson County Chancery Court approved a Final Agreed Order that established joint ownership between the University and Crystal Bridges through the newly established Stieglitz Art Collection, LLC. The operating agreement required the University to set aside $3.9 million of the $30 million sale proceeds to be used to establish a fund used for the care and maintenance of the collection at the Van Vechten Gallery at the University. The court dispute cost the University $5.8 million in legal fees.

Science programs

Fisk University has a strong record of academic excellence: it has graduated more African Americans who go on to earn PhDs in the natural sciences than any other institution.

Ranking

Fisk University is one of four historically black colleges and universities to earn a tier-one ranking on the list of Best National Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2011 edition of Best Colleges by U.S. News and World Report. Of the 1,400 institutions ranked nationwide, only 246 institutions earned tier one status.

Fisk appears on Parade magazine's "A List" of colleges and universities that offer combined bachelor's and master's degree programs.

In 2010, the Washington Monthly ranked Fisk 29th among America's Best Liberal Arts Colleges. In 2011, CBS Money Watch ranked professors at Fisk University 19th out of 650 colleges and universities in the nation.

According to the Princeton Review, Fisk University is one of America's 373 Best Colleges & Universities.

Athletics

Fisk University teams, nicknamed athletically as the Bulldogs, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Division I level, primarily competing in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC). Men's sports include basketball, cross country, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball.

Notable alumni

Name	Class year	Notability	Reference(s)
Dr. John Angelo Lester	1895	Professor Emeritus of Physiology, Meharry Medical College
Lil Hardin Armstrong	1915	jazz pianist/composer, second wife of Louis Armstrong
Constance Baker Motley	1941–1942	first African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate
Marion Barry	1960	former mayor of Washington, D.C.
Mary Frances Berry		former Chair, United States Commission on Civil Rights; former Chancellor University of Colorado at Boulder
John Betsch	1967	Jazz percusionist
Joyce Bolden		first African-American woman to serve on the Commission for Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music
Otis Boykin	1942	Inventor, control device for the heart pacemaker
St. Elmo Brady		first African American to earn a doctorate in Chemistry
Virginia E. Walker Broughton	1875, 1878	Author and Baptist missionary
Cora Brown		first African-American woman elected to a state senate
Gregory "DJ GB" Byers	2013	DJ, Producer
Henry Alvin Cameron	1896	Educator, decorated World War I veteran
Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady		past national president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority
Alfred O. Coffin		first African American to earn a doctorate in zoology
Malia Cohen	2001	San Francisco District 10 Supervisor 2010 – Present
Johnnetta B. Cole		anthropologist, former President of Spelman College and Bennett College
William L. Dawson (politician)	1909	U.S. Congressman (1943–1970)
Arthur Cunningham	1951	Musical Composer, studied at Juilliard and Columbia University
Charles Diggs		United States House of Representatives Michigan (1955–1980)
Mahala Ashley Dickerson	1935	first black female attorney in the state of Alabama and first black president of the National Association of Women Lawyers
Rel Dowdell	1993	acclaimed filmmaker
W. E. B. Du Bois	1888	sociologist, scholar, first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
Venida Evans	1969	Actress, best known for Ikea commercials
Etta Zuber Falconer	1953	first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics; former Chair, mathematics department at Spelman College
John Hope Franklin	1935	historian, professor, scholar, author of landmark text From Slavery to Freedom
Victor O. Frazer		United States House of Representatives (1995–1997)
Alonzo Fulgham		former acting chief and operating officer of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Nikki Giovanni	1967	poet, author, professor, scholar
Louis George Gregory		posthumously, a Hand of the Cause in Bahá'í Faith
Eliza Ann Grier	1891	first African-American female physician in Georgia
Kevin Hales		Professor, Africologist, Fulbright Scholar, NEH Scholar, Teaching Excellence Professor (Scholar of global African culture)
Alcee Hastings		U.S. Congressman and former U.S. district court judge
Roland Hayes		concert singer
Perry Wilbon Howard		Assistant U.S. Attorney General under President Herbert Hoover
Elmer Imes	1903	Renowned Physicist and Second African-American to earn a Ph.D in Physics
Esther Cooper Jackson	1940	Founding editor of Freedomways Journal
Leonard Jackson (actor)	1952	Actor, Five on the Black Hand Side; The Color Purple
Robert James		former NFL cornerback
Judith Jamison		Pioneering Dancer and Choreographer; former artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Ted Jarrett		R&B recording artist and producer
Dr. Charles Jeter	1971	father of Derek Jeter
Ben Jobe	1956	Legendary basketball coach, Southern University
Lewis Wade Jones	1931	Sociologist; Julius Rosenwald Foundation Fellow at Columbia University
Ella Mae Johnson	1921	at age 105 years old, Ella Mae Johnson traveled to Washington, DC to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama
Matthew Knowles	1973	Father and manager of Beyoncé Knowles
Nella Larsen	1908	Novelist, Harlem Renaissance era
Julius Lester	1960	Author of children's books and former professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
David Levering Lewis		Two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner
John Lewis		Congressman, civil rights activist, former President of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Jimmie Lunceford	1925	famous bandleader in the swing era
Aubrey Lyles	1903	Vaudville performer
Mandisa	2001	Grammy and Dove Award-nominated Christian contemporary singer/songwriter, ninth-place finalist in the fifth season (2006) of American Idol
Patti J. Malone	1880	Fisk Jubilee Singer
Louis E. Martin	1933	Godfather of Black Politics
Wade H. McCree	1941	Second African-American United States Solicitor General; Justice, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit	90px
Samuel A. McElwee	1883	State Senator during the Reconstruction Era and the first African American elected three times to the Tennessee General Assembly
Robert McFerrin		first African American male to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and father of Bobby McFerrin
Leslie Meek	1987	Administrative Law Judge, wife of Congressman Kendrick Meek
Theo Mitchell	1960	Senator, South Carolina General Assembly
Undine Smith Moore		first Fisk graduate to receive a scholarship to Juilliard, Pulitzer Prize Nominee
Diane Nash		founding member of SNCC
Rachel B. Noel		Politician; first African-American to serve on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education
Hon. Hazel O'Leary		former U.S. Secretary of Energy	90px
Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr.		Philosophy professor at Vanderbilt University
J.O. Patterson, Jr.	1958	First African American to occupy the office of Mayor of Memphis. Tennessee State Representative, State Senator, Memphis Councilman, Jurisdictional Bishop in the Church of God in Christ
Helen Phillips	1928	first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus
Annette Lewis Phinazee	1939	first black woman to earn a doctorate in library sciences from Columbia University
Alma Powell		wife of Gen. Colin Powell
Lorenzo Dow Turner	1910	Linguist and Chair, African Studies at Roosevelt University
A. Maceo Walker	1930	Businessman, Universal Life Insurance, Tri-State Bank
Ron Walters	1963	Scholar of African-American politics, Chair, Afro-American Studies Brandeis University
Margaret Murray Washington	1890	Lady Principal of Tuskegee Institute and third wife of Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells		American civil rights activist and women's suffrage advocate
Charles H. Wesley	1911	President of Wilberforce University from 1942 to 1947, and President of Central State College from 1947–1965; third African-American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard
Kym Whitley		actress, comedienne
Frederica Wilson	1963	U.S. Representative for Florida's 17th congressional district
Tom Wilson (producer)	1953	Music producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa
Frank Yerby	1938	first African-American to publish a best-selling novel

Notable faculty

Name	Department	Notability	Reference
Camille Akeju	Art	Art historian & museum administrator
Arna Bontemps	Librarian	Head Librarian; Harlem Renaissance Poet
Robert Hayden		United States Poet Laureate 1976–1978
Charles Spurgeon Johnson	President	First African American President of Fisk University
Fayette Avery McKenzie	President	Fourth President of Fisk University
Thomas Elsa Jones	President	Fifth President of Fisk University
Percy Lavon Julian	Chemistry	first African-American Chemist and second African-American from any field to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences
Lee Lorch	Mathematics	mathematician and civil rights activist. Fired in 1955 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Hon. Hazel O'Leary	President	former U.S. Secretary of Energy
John Oliver Killens	Writer in Residence	Two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee
Nikki Giovanni	English	author, poet, activist
James Weldon Johnson	Literature	author, poet and civil rights activist, author of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, known as the "Negro National Anthem"
John W. Work III	Music	Choir Director, Ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-American folk music
Aaron Douglas	Art	painter, illustrator, muralist
Robert E. Park	Sociology	sociologist of the Chicago School

External links

• Official website
• Official athletics website