St. Aug’s president says she was fired, as university faces loss of accreditation
St. Augustine’s University President Christine McPhail said she learned she is out of a job on Sunday.
Two days earlier, she said, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges voted to strip the university’s accreditation.
In an interview Monday, McPhail said the university’s board of trustees told her Sunday she had been fired without providing specific reasons.
“I’m still trying to figure that out for myself,” she said.
The university’s board chairman declined to comment.
McPhail’s attorney said the firing is tied to a discrimination complaint. She had filed the complaint, alleging discrimination based on her gender, against the board weeks earlier. The complaint described demeaning comments about her gender from members of the board, as well as them yelling at her and berating her.
“She filed an internal complaint on Oct. 9, 2023, which alleged that certain conduct created a hostile environment,” her attorney, David Tracey of New York City, said in an interview. “Thereafter, members of the board of trustees pressured her to recant and threatened her job.”
He said he and his client subsequently learned the board voted to terminate her Nov. 14, but didn’t notify her until Sunday.
Accreditation of St. Aug’s
McPhail said the university hopes to keep its accreditation by fixing what she described as the central issue: the lack of annual audits for 2021 and 2022. She said the university has until Jan. 24 to appeal the loss of accreditation and should have the audits completed by then.
“I have all confidence the university will have what they need to make a successful appeal,” she said. “Primarily they do need the audits. I do think they will have the audits at that time.”
The News & Observer contacted SACSCOC by email Monday but has not heard back. The accreditor is holding its annual meeting in Orlando, in which accreditation decisions are made.
Accreditation is vitally important for colleges and universities. The federal government requires it in order for students to receive government financial aid.
A year ago, SACSCOC’s board of trustees put St. Augustine’s on probation, citing financial issues. The board found St. Augustine’s couldn’t meet requirements related to financial resources, financial documents, financial responsibility, control of finances, governing board characteristics and federal and state responsibilities.
The small, historically Black university of 1,000 students in downtown Raleigh had also been put on probation between 2016 and 2018 over financial issues.
Christine McPhail
In early 2021, the board named McPhail president, succeeding her husband, Irving Pressly McPhail, who died of COVID-19 just three months into the job.
Christine McPhail said she has spent much of her tenure working on solving the financial issues and stabilizing enrollment at the university. She was the 13th president of the university in east Raleigh, which was chartered in 1867.
“We’ve had a stable enrollment over the last three years and have designed some strategies to increase the enrollment,” she said.
Her contract ran through February 2025, she confirmed.
Reached Monday by The News & Observer, St. Augustine’s Board of Trustees Chair James Perry declined to comment. St. Augustine’s spokesperson Demarcus Williams told The News & Observer the university was not able to provide comment Monday evening, but hoped to do so Tuesday.
McPhail had previously worked as a professor of practice at the John E. Roueche Center for Community College Leadership at Kansas State University and is the founding professor and director of the Community College Leadership Doctoral Program at Morgan State University in Maryland, according to her bio on St. Augustine’s website. She is also a former president of Cypress College, a community college near Anaheim, California.
