Dr. Paulette Dillard of Shaw University and Dr. Marcus Burgess of Saint Augustine's University met inside City Hall on Tuesday afternoon with what they believed was going to be an update on what the city had been doing for the past year to increase funding for the schools.
"Relationships matter. You can't just walk in cold and ask for money," said Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin. "It doesn't work that way."
Dillard at one point shot back. "I'm kissing babies and I'm shaking hands and I've got relationships out the wazoo."
The back-and-forth between the presidents and city leaders came amid Dillard and Burgess seemingly pushing for city leaders and the local business community to leverage their pocketbooks to help fund the universities.
"We are in a fight for survival," commented Burgess. "Let's not kid ourselves."
Just last week a special accrediting committee convened at Saint Augustine's to see if the school has made improvements in its accreditation challenges.
Meanwhile, Dillard again brought up her university's ambitious Shaw U District project that hopes to act as an economic driver in the neighborhood.
Councilwoman Stormie Forte and others on the committee agreed that would be a great starting point in helping the university reach its goals.
"Sometimes you think we always come with our hands out begging for money," Dillard added. "Consider us a partner in how we keep this more equitable."
Baldwin and the presidents both agreed the schools have valuable land that would be beneficial to all parties. In fact, Burgess said the school has 105 acres of land, yet only 20 percent is being used.
"I think the land certainly has a lot of value to you, to us," Baldwin said to Burgess. "That would be my first step. Is how we can leverage those assets."
Tuesday's meeting comes months after a member of the Saint Augustine's Board of Trustees made public the details of an apparent meeting involving the board member, Burgess, some local unnamed business leaders and the CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Company. There was also an alleged comment made during the meeting that "Raleigh doesn't need two HBCUs." At the time of the original reporting a representative for Capitol Broadcasting Company did not respond to requests for comment.
"Both of our universities are strong in their own right. We have outstanding alum. We have outstanding board members and outstanding faculty, staff and students. We will work together on the initiatives that make sense," said Burgess when asked about the meeting Tuesday. "But there's not a merger in place for these institutions."
The committee successfully motioned to move forward on a land partnership agreement, ways to increase federal funding and working together to obtain grant money. That motion will go to the City Council for a larger vote.
"I'm very satisfied with what happened today. Of course we're impatient. We'd like to have it move a lot faster. And to have made more progress. But we're moving forward and we're excited that there was some initiatives that will be moving forward to Council this session and that gives us hope," said Dillard.