Adding Options
Historic Bennett College Joins Transfer Pact

Bennett College for Women is the fifth historically black college to sign a comprehensive transfer agreement with Milwaukee Area Technical College, with talks in progress to add six more schools.

“We are pleased and honored to be adding this storied institution to our original group of four partners,” said Darnell E. Cole, MATC president. “And we are dedicated to further expanding transfer options for African-American students who want access to the black college experience.” The agreement is significant in that it aligns MATC with the leading black women’s college in America. For Bennett College, it is the first such partnership agreement outside of its home state.
 
Located in Greensboro, N.C., Bennett College was founded in 1873 as a coeducational institution through the inspiration of newly emancipated slaves. It reorganized as a college for women in 1926 and became one of the first 15 Negro four-year colleges admitted to membership of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Bennett College President Johnnetta
Cole came to Milwaukee to sign Bennett’s first transfer agreement
with a two-year Midwestern college. 

Since 1930, Bennett College has graduated more than 5,000 women from all walks of life, among them a host of distinguished alumnae who have made profound contributions to society. Bennett offers 24 majors and awards the bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, bachelor of arts and sciences in interdisciplinary studies and the bachelor of social work degrees.

Johnnetta B. Cole, Bennett president, hailed the agreement as benefiting the two colleges, their students and their communities. “In southern higher education, Bennett has one of the longest and proudest traditions of excellence,” she said. “Now we are joining with another distinguished partner at the community college level to give the Midwest expanded options for the black educational experience.”
 
The agreement with MATC differs from Bennett’s previous transfer agreements in that it is with a two-year college and comprehensive: Bennett will accept a broad range of MATC credits.

“Students will have had an outstanding education at MATC, but when they come south into a small nurturing liberal arts college for women, something magical is going to happen,” Johnnetta Cole said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the women who leave MATC, which is technologically about as up-to-date as any college I’ve seen, and come into a very small, nurturing black environment. My prediction is they will end up saying, ‘Wow. I had the best of both worlds.’”

Not related, Johnnetta Cole and Darnell Cole have had a long professional relationship as leading black educators, which paved the way for the new partnership. Before becoming president of Bennett College, Johnnetta Cole was the first African-American to lead Spelman College. Darnell Cole became president of MATC in July 2001. He formerly served as vice president of Indiana’s Ivy Tech System and chancellor of Ivy Tech State College Northwest in Gary, Indiana. 

Barbara Cannell, MATC director of articulation, said that under the agreement Bennett would accept MATC credits in liberal arts and sciences, education, business and mass communications. All such credits will be accepted, she said, but may not count toward degree requirements if less than a “C” was attained. “We also are talking to six other black colleges which have expressed interest in similar agreements,” Cannell said.
Original partners in the historically black colleges transfer pact were:

• Lane College, Jackson, Tenn.
• Miles College, Birmingham, Ala.
• Paine College, Augusta, Ga.
• Texas College, Tyler, Texas.

For more information about existing agreements and the new Bennett College for Women agreement, please contact Barbara Cannell, (414) 297-6836, cannellb@matc.edu.

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