Southeastern University was a private, non-profit undergraduate and graduate institution of higher education located in southwestern Washington, D.C. The university lost its accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education on August 31, 2009. The Commission reported that the college lacked rigor and was losing faculty, enrollment and financial stability. The 130-year-old school ceased offering classes after an extended summer session in 2009.de Vise, Daniel. D.C. ''University Loses Accreditation: Southeastern Doesn't Expect to Offer Fall Classes.'' Washington Post Monday, September 14, 2009; 9:56 AM. The closure was very likely linked to the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

. Southeastern University was established by

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

and chartered by an Act of Congress in 1879. It had degree programs in

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Child Development Child development involves the Human development (biology), biological, developmental psychology, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence. Childhood is divided into 3 stages o ...

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Business Management Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of manageme ...

, Accounting, Finance,

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, and Allied Health, a program initiated in 2006 at Greater Southeast Community Hospital. There were also certificate programs in entrepreneurship, property management, real estate, Web development, and others. It was a member of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area but lost this affiliation after the fall 2009 semester. Through the spring of 2009, Southeastern University had a total enrollment of about 870 students, with 222 of those students pursuing postgraduate degrees. About 77% were locally based, and a majority were female, but there was also a significant international enrollment. International enrollment had been in decline after the

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

, when the student population shifted from international students to primarily low-income District residents. The university employed approximately 140 faculty and staff before the university was notified of its loss of accreditation.

History

Southeastern began as a series of classes offered by

of the District of Columbia in 1879. The Washington School of accountancy was added in 1907, and in 1923 the university incorporated under the authority of the District of Columbia as, "Southeastern University of YMCA of the District of Columbia." An August 19, 1937 federal charter from

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

renamed the institution to "Southeastern University". The university afterward added other colleges. In 1977, the university received accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. During the 1980s, two university officials were fired due to misappropriation of funds, and SEU's student loan default rate reached 42% by 1987. In 1989, the federal government temporarily cut off the university's loan funds. Enrollment declined from 1800 to 500 in the early 1990s.

Closure

Three months before the university was notified it would lose accreditation, Southeastern received $1.5 million from the District of Columbia to fund improvements intended to prevent the school's loss of accreditation. Efforts by the D.C. government to recover the funding after the school lost accreditation were unsuccessful. Elaine Ryan replaced Charlene Drew Jarvis as university president on March 31, 2009 after Jarvis had been president for 13 years. Prior to losing accreditation, the university was negotiating a merger with Graduate School USA (formerly Graduate School,

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

), also based in Washington, D.C.Fine Could Hamper Southeastern U. Merger
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'', Retrieved October 13, 2009 In May 2014, the Shakespeare Theatre Company announced plans to redevelop the former site of Southeastern University at 501 Eye Street SW into an actors' campus. These plans fell through and the campus building was demolished and the space turned into a parking lot.

Notable alumni

* Apirat Kongsompong (born 1960), Commander in Chief of the Royal Thai Army * Mohammed Barkindo (1959-2022),

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* William Ralph Basham (born 1943), Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Director of U.S. Secret Service *

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(born 1944),

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, Deputy Director of the

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(1911–1987),

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attorney and politician * Hervey Gilbert Machen (1916–1994), Maryland Congressman * Tolulope Akande-Sadipe (born 1966), Nigerian Congresswoman

References

External links

Southeastern University
at seu.edu (2009 archive; this domain now refers to an unrelated university)
Southeastern University
at southeastern.edu (2009 archive; this domain now refers to an unrelated university) * {{authority control Defunct private universities and colleges in Washington, D.C. Educational institutions disestablished in 2009 Educational institutions established in 1879 Universities and colleges founded by the YMCA 1879 establishments in Washington, D.C. 2009 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.