This week in Christian history: Holy Roman Emperor retires to monastery, Saint Augustine’s University opens

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, January 12, 2025

Saint Augustine’s University begins to hold classes – Jan. 13, 1868

This week marks the anniversary of when Saint Augustine’s University, an Episcopal Church-affiliated historically black university based in Raliegh, North Carolina, began holding classes.

Originally chartered as a “Normal School and Collegiate Institute” in 1867, Bishop Thomas Atkinson of the Diocese of North Carolina was the first president of the Board of Trustees, while the Rev. J.  Brinton Smith, secretary of the Freedman’s Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church, became the first principal.

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SAU boasts of having the first nursing school in North Carolina for black students and being the first historically African American university to own an on-campus commercial radio station.

More recently, SAU has struggled with severe financial woes, with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges voting last year to revoke its accreditation.

SAU is appealing the decision.