Cheyney University
 |
|
|
Former names
|
Institute for Colored Youth Cheyney State Normal School Cheyney Training School for Teachers Cheyney State Teachers College Cheyney State College |
|---|---|
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1837 |
| Affiliation | Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education |
| Chairman | Robert W. Bogle |
| Chancellor | Frank Brogan |
| President | Frank Pogue |
| Provost | Robert DixonProvost and Vice President for Academic Affairs |
| Undergraduates | 711 pupils (2015) 1,519 (2001) |
| Location | Cheyney, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Colors | Royal blue and white |
| Athletics | NCAA Division II – PSAC (East) |
| Nickname | Wolves |
| Website | www |
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is a public, co-educational historically black university that is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Cheyney University has a 275-acre (1.11 km2) campus that is located in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, a community within Thornbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania and Thornbury Township, Delaware County (school straddles both counties), in the state of Pennsylvania. Cheyney University is a member-school of Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The university offers bachelor's and master's degrees. In November 2015, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education placed Cheyney University on probation. Administrators are required to address a variety of issues including finances, leadership, and assessment of learning.
Built on land donated by the prominent Cheyney family, the university was founded as the African Institute in February 1837 and renamed the Institute of Colored Youth (ICY) in April 1837, Cheyney University is the oldest African-American institution of higher learning.
Unlike Lincoln University and some others HBCUs, Cheyney did not award degrees until 1914, when it adopted the curriculum of a normal school (teacher training). The African Institute was founded by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist who bequeathed $10,000, one-tenth of his estate, to design and establish a school to educate people of African descent and prepare them as teachers.
Born on a plantation on Tortola, an island in the British West Indies, Humphreys came to Philadelphia in 1764. Many Quakers were abolitionists, and he became concerned about the struggles of free people of color to make a living and gain education in a discriminatory society. News of a race riot against free blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1829 inspired Humphreys to bequeath money in his will for higher education for free blacks. He charged thirteen fellow Quakers to design an institution "to instruct the descendents of the African Race in school learning, in the various branches of the mechanic Arts, trades and Agriculture, in order to prepare and fit and qualify them to act as teachers ..."
...
Wikipedia