KAPPA NEWS
Dr. Michael J. Sorrell: President of Paul Quinn College “You want to know what motivates me,” he asked. “When I was 17-years-old, my high school basketball coach at our banquet said some things that were really hurtful. He said, ‘We’ll look at this guy’s career and we’ll think woulda, coulda, shoulda. He never will become the player that he should have been.’ I decided at that moment in time, that no one would ever be able to look at me again and think that I didn’t give the most out of my ability that was possible.”
Dr. Michael J. Sorrell is the 34 th President and longest-serving in the
founded on April 4, 1872, by a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church preachers in Austin, Texas. The school’s original purpose was to educate freed slaves and their offspring. Today, PQC proudly educate students of all races and socioeconomic classes under the banner of our institutional ethos, WE over Me. The mission of PQC is to provide a quality, faith-based education that addresses the academic, social, and Christian development of students. Dr. Sorrell was recently named one of the “Worlds 50’s Greatest Leaders” of 2018 by Forbes Magazine. Additionally, Dr. Sorrell was recently recognized in Time Magazine as “People
Who are Changing the South List” and he is the only two-time recipient of the HBCU Male President of the Year Award in history (2016 and 2012) and has been nominated a record six times, he was recently crowned a third time HBCU Male President of the Year Award in 2018. While the past 11 years have not been easy, Dr. Sorrell has taken Paul Quinn College to new heights. When he arrived, enrollment had dropped to just 151 students. Many doubted the university would even survive. “I mean, that’s a fact,” Sorrell said. “We were 18 months from closing. People
used to follow me down the aisle in the grocery store and want to know how we were going to make it, and say that I never should have taken this job.” He cut tuition and board costs from roughly $24,000 a year, down to $15,000 a year. He turned the university into an urban work college model, which allows his students more freedom to work and attend classes. He launched a dress code that requires all male students to wear a collared shirt to class. And he turned the university’s football field into a farm, which raises organic produce to combat a federally- recognized food desert. More than 550 students will attend the university
146-year history of Paul Quinn College. Under his leadership Paul Quinn has become nationally renowned for its innovative approach of using higher education to address the most persistent and pressing problems of society. Dr. Sorrell is a Spring 1986 initiate of the Oberlin College Chapter, the Iota Nu of Kappa Alpha Psi. He is a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi and a member of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. Paul Quinn College (PQC) is a private, faith-based, four-year, liberal arts- inspired college that was
50 | 84 TH GRAND CHAPTER MEETING ISSUE THE JOURNAL
Publishing achievement for 105 years
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