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On a windy Saturday afternoon in September, approximately 100 people filled the pews of Asbury United Methodist Church in Durham. But it wasn’t a congregation that gathered under the filtered light of the stained glass windows.
“When I say ‘Bull City!’ you say, ‘Our city!’” said Keith Bullard, a member of the Union of Southern Service Workers. “When I say, ‘It’s time!’ you say, ‘To make Duke pay!’”
The event marked the launch of “Duke Respect Durham,” a campaign to persuade the university to give more money to the city it calls home. Most private universities are nonprofits and largely exempt from the property taxes that fund K-12 schools, public safety, and infrastructure, even as they own large swaths of land and bring in billions in revenue. Duke Respect Durham wants the school to pay the city $50 million each year.
Duke says it already contributes tens of millions of dollars to Durham through taxes and community programs. Duke’s investments have been an economic lifeline for the region, officials say, and are integral to the city’s success.
The debate comes as the university celebrates its 100th anniversary, and highlights a question that has played out across the country: What does a university owe to its hometown?
–Erin Gretzinger
A New Campaign Asks: Does Duke Respect Durham?
A coalition of labor and local organizers wants Duke to voluntarily pay Durham $50 million annually. The campaign builds on long-simmering tensions.
Thanks for reading The Quad, a higher education newsletter written by The Assembly’s Matt Hartman and Erin Gretzinger. Reach us with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.
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The Quad is going on Fall Break! We won’t publish a newsletter next Thursday. Look for us on December 5. Happy Thanksgiving!
Fear Factor
Since 2001, the Hunt Institute has been a venerated education nonprofit in the state, led for many years by its namesake former governor with a mission “to promote action on improving schools.”
In the eight years since Javaid Siddiqi became CEO, the institute has seen rapid growth. But former employees say it has come at the price of high staff turnover and low morale.
Between July 2023 and September 2024, at least 44 employees left the organization, representing a 100 percent turnover rate in just 14 months.
Earlier this year, nine former employees wrote to the institute’s board of directors to ask for changes that would lead to a “healthier, more respectful, and effective organizational culture.”
“The Hunt Institute is being run by an autocratic leader where power is used to demand obedience,” wrote the former director of early learning in one of the missives from former staff that The Assembly obtained.
–Jeffrey Billman
Former Hunt Institute Employees Describe a ‘Culture of Fear’
Ex-staffers say an autocratic leader has created a toxic environment that imperils the venerated education nonprofit’s future—and former Gov. Jim Hunt’s legacy.
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Can You Love a Football Team to Victory?
Apparently not.
On Friday, The Assembly published Carroll Walton’s profile of UNC-Charlotte football coach Biff Poggi. The 64-year-old is known for his high school coaching career, a propensity for wearing cutoff T-shirts, and the money he made as a hedge fund manager.
Poggi’s distinguished and sometimes controversial years in Baltimore led to both a best-selling book and an HBO documentary. Walton reported on his second year of trying to turn around UNC-Charlotte’s struggling program with his distinct blend of tough love and empathy.
But Poggi was fired on Monday, and Walton’s story helps explain why.
–Matt Hartman
‘Land Grab’ or Helping Hand?
Over the past year, Saint Augustine’s University hasn’t caught many lucky breaks. After temporarily losing accreditation last December, the Raleigh HBCU has faced a litany of financial, legal, and leadership struggles, and its enrollment plunged from more than 1,000 students last year to just 200 this fall. Still, going into the academic year, the university hoped a new agreement worth up to $30 million in credit could help turn the tide.
Saint Augustine’s signed the agreement this summer with Gothic Ventures, a firm run by W.H. “Kip” Johnson III, who is also a partner at a Raleigh law firm and a senior lecturer at Duke University. An initial $7 million loan from Gothic Ventures helped the university settle outstanding debts to students and employees and pay for things like audits that are required for it to retain its accreditation status. The agreement was “a big win,” the university wrote in an August press release, which praised Johnson and Gothic Ventures for the “vital funding.”
But the $7 million loan has a 26% annual interest rate, WRAL reported earlier this month. According to a document obtained by WRAL, the university listed its main campus and 40 other pieces of property totaling more than 11 acres surrounding campus as collateral for the loan.
The terms prompted concerns among multiple community organizations, who gathered outside Johnson’s office in downtown Raleigh on Wednesday morning to demand changes to the loan. Alongside dozens of protesters, local faith leaders and other advocates argued that the interest rate put the struggling university in an even more vulnerable position. Speakers called the loan “usurious,” “predatory,” and a “land grab.”
“For Kip Johnson and Gothic Ventures to claim that they want to help the university, who do they think they’re fooling?” said Derrick Sauls, a former professor at Saint Augustine’s who is now part of the SaveSAU Coalition.
Johnson told The Assembly on Wednesday that the terms were standard given the university’s financial status and the “very risky” nature of the loan. He said the university sought loans from other lenders but was rejected.
Johnson said the loan isn’t a “land grab,” pointing to the deed of trust that says any proceeds from land not used to repay sales expenses and amounts due to Gothic would go to others entitled to the money, such as lien holders.
“We put no requirements on the university’s use of its land. There are no requirements that it be developed for any purpose,” Johnson said. “We want the university to decide what is best for the university.”
The university didn’t respond to The Assembly’s request for comment.
The loan aside, the Raleigh HBCU’s survival remains in question. While the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges reinstated Saint Augustine’s membership in July, the school remains on Probation for Good Cause and is up for review again in December. The university at that point will have exceeded the maximum two-year probation period. That means it must be compliance with all accreditation standards for which it has been cited by December or its membership will be revoked.
Earlier this month, the Raleigh city council voted to partner with Saint Augustine’s and Shaw University, which has also faced financial woes, to buy or lease unused campus land for affordable housing projects, organize a private fund, and explore other grant options.
“If we allow this institution to fall,” said Saint Augustine’s alumnus Harold Mallette at the event, “we have failed as citizens.”
–Erin Gretzinger
Correction: An earlier version of this newsletter said the interest rate was monthly. It is an annual rate.
Reach our team with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.
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