This is an opinion column

I believe in accountability. Like most of BSC’s past presidents, I took that responsibility very seriously. But accountability is different from blame. Accountability leads to positive change; blame leads to inaccurate assertions, and if inappropriately assigned, causes undeserved pain. It is naive for the readership to be left with the impression that the entire blame for BSC’s recent announcement of financial crisis can be placed solely on the poor decisions of its most recent presidents, but it is unconscionable that such blame be placed on Dr. Neal Berte. Let’s be honest – Dr. Berte is the reason BSC has survived and thrived for so long. If some of his decisions seem in retrospect to be less than perfect, maybe he is human.

Certainly, it was Dr. Berte’s vision and leadership that built BSC to its nationally ranked status and cemented it as a peer to such highly lauded institutions as Sewanee, the University of Richmond, Rhodes College, Furman, and others. Dr. Berte had a lofty vision, and he achieved success through his attention to people: students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and the larger Birmingham community. He also achieved success by carefully selecting the people who populated the College’s board, thereby creating what has been characterized in the press as a large, unwieldy, and ineffective board. He built a 77-member board which, by the way, was comprised of many of Birmingham’s heavy hitters who were in positions to garner the financial support required for a privately funded college.

Trustee Joelle Phillips appropriately pointed out Dr. Berte’s attention to students and the importance of his letters of encouragement. But his letters were not limited to students. It was because of Dr. Berte’s propensity to reach out to members of the Birmingham community, like myself, with letters of congratulations, coupled with the tenacity of Board Member DeLynn Zell, that caused me to eventually succumb to the Board’s request in 2010 to work with them and the interim administration as a financial consultant to quickly regain financial stability after the 2009 debacle that concluded with the departure of then president David Pollick. The inaccurate but prolific press during the summer of 2010 would have convinced me the college’s future was over, but the actions of those two individuals convinced me to see if I could help. During the summer and fall of 2010, we were forced to reduce faculty and staff and operating expenditures by 25% in order to remain solvent and to generate the momentum required to recruit a permanent president. The faculty and staff paid the greatest price, and they were stalwarts.

Lady Luck was with us when General Charles Krulak joined BSC’s fight as the 13th president in the spring of 2011, and with his strong leadership began to turn the college in a more permanently positive direction. It was an honor to serve as the General’s Chief of Staff until 2013. During those years, under his leadership, the college’s full SACS accreditation was restored, and enrollment increased. Morale was high. The General worked with our debtor bank to lower our interest rates for three years, which provided temporary relief.

The College was moving in the right direction when the General retired in 2014, but the subsequent president was unable to sustain the forward progress and morale suffered. When General K and a few key members of the Board asked me to return in 2016 as BSC’s president, my acceptance was contingent upon substantial financial support from the Board to allow time for the administration to increase enrollment by working with two-year colleges, introducing online classes, creating majors that were in demand by students, etc. The smaller board, though they tried mightily, was not able to garner the needed financial support. That smaller board was a more effective decision-making group with which to work; yet while Dr. Berte’s larger board might have been cumbersome, it was an effective fundraising entity. And believe me, a private liberal arts college’s’ success relies on the quality of its faculty to recruit students, coupled with the board’s ability to raise the funds required to remain competitive.

As it turned out, without the needed fundraising, even the renegotiation of debt during my presidency from $35 million down to $21 million did not provide sufficient breathing room. Nor was making the true cost of BSC’s tuition visible sufficient to sway more students from the attractive facilities UA, UAB and Auburn had built, coupled with the competitive scholarship packages offered through their honors’ programs.

I daresay that all of BSC’s presidents have had the overriding goal of maintaining its quality education and ensuring its future financial stability. Even Dr. Pollick, although his decisions and actions seem misguided and are impossible to condone, was trying to save the college by dramatically increasing enrollment. Certainly, BSC’s facilities were no longer competitive with those of the public universities in the state. He was correct that modern dorms were and still are considered mandatory by parents of prospective students. And although there may have been a hole in the door when Kyle Whitmire visited, the Welcome Center actually does provide quite an impressive face for the campus.

I also daresay that all of BSC’s presidents have made mistakes that in hindsight, we wish we could correct. I’m sure that is true for the presidents of all colleges. Of course, we carry that responsibility. But if we must assign blame for BSC’s financial decline, we should add to its presidential and board missteps a climate that no longer adequately values liberal arts education; beautiful state-of-the art facilities at the public universities with which BSC competes; public universities’ honors programs that provide more-than-generous scholarships for its students; add alumni giving that is below average, in part due to a very good but small business program that cannot generate the kind of alumni giving associated with larger business schools (business school alumni are generally the most prolific donors); add the pandemic; and add a failure in 2017 by the City of Birmingham to collaborate with the college on an initiative to survey residents and then work to build a more vibrant Western Area.

But please, let’s not unduly blame the person who put the college on the map in the first place for possible missteps – Dr. Neal Berte!

And while I am proudly a product of the University of Alabama and UAB, I am equally devoted to the College recognized as a College that Changes Lives – Birmingham-Southern College.

Linda Flaherty-Goldsmith retired as Birmingham-Southern College’s president in 2018 and the only female president in its 167-year history.