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Honor the History, Celebrate the Future

Support Paul Quinn College

Friends:

In an increasingly global marketplace, the key for any city remaining competitive and economically robust is the development of a highly skilled workforce. 2008 Students In order for Dallas to remain an international business hub, we need a well-educated and diverse workforce. To maintain our business edge, Dallas needs more strong institutions of higher education, not fewer. It is in this vein that we come to you, the citizens of Dallas, asking you to join us in supporting one of our institutions, Paul Quinn College.

For more than 137 years, Paul Quinn College has been educating thousands of men and women of Texas. Currently home to approximately 400 students – more than 75% of whom are first generation college students – Paul Quinn College lights a path to higher education for a growing segment of our city's high school population and brings richness and diversity to the fabric of our local community.

Under President Michael Sorrell and the staff he has assembled, PQC has made great strides in the last two years. They have reduced inherited debt and expenses, almost doubled annual fundraising, raised admissions standards, increased applications six-fold, improved the faculty, implemented a business casual dress code to better prepare students for the increasingly competitive workforce, and worked to restore donor confidence. Each of these steps pushes the college closer to achieving President Sorrell's goal of transforming Paul Quinn College into one of America's great small colleges.

In addition to these changes, PQC is in the process of forging exciting partnerships with entities like the City of Dallas, Dallas ISD, SMU, The University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, and Habitat for Humanity. Equally as impressive is the new academic calendar that is set to debut in fall 2009. This will allow students to maximize both class instruction time and professional development, while minimizing their education-related debt – helping students to lift themselves out of jobs and into careers as soon as possible.

For these reasons, we support PQC's efforts to appeal the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools recent vote to deny PQC accreditation and ask SACS to thoughtfully consider reversing their decision. We feel that SACS' decision is short-sighted and incorrect – no challenge has been made to the quality of PQC's staff or the quality of the education PQC provides. Instead PQC is being punished based on past deficiencies that President Sorrell and his staff have made great strides in correcting. If SACS is successful in upholding their verdict, all of the school's positive changes will be ignored and – worse yet – the transformation of Paul Quinn College will suffer a significant setback.

We are proud to announce that we stand with Paul Quinn College and their leadership as they embark on this fight. Moreover, we ask you to match our commitment of corporate and civic resources to ensure that Paul Quinn College has the means necessary to continue its dramatic turnaround. Visit SupportPQC.com today to make a donation, upload a statement of support on your letterhead, and get connected.

As President Sorrell has been known to say, Dallas deserves a great small college. We intend to help Paul Quinn become that college.

Thank you,