Since its inception in the early 1960s, the mission of Friends of Cuttington (Friends) has been to support the operation of Cuttington College in Liberia, West Africa. Cuttington College, now Cuttington University, is an institution of higher learning closely tied to the Episcopal Church USA. Friends is in the United States and, through the years, has identified and delivered resources for the College primarily from donors here in the U.S.
The first meeting of the Friends was held in May 1963 with Fred Lininger as president. Mrs. Gallatin Cobb, Mr. Bernard Reverdin, Mr. Theodore Sedgwick were officers. Dr. Christian Baker, President of Cuttington College and Charles D. Sherman were honorary directors.
Mr. Lininger who was President of Liberian Services, Inc. was a director of the International Trust Company of Liberia. He was a personal assistant and family representative of Mr. Edward R. Stettinius, a founder of Liberian Services, S.A. and had been senior deputy commissioner of Maritime Affairs for the Republic of Liberia.
From the beginning, the directors of Friends had all spent considerable time in Liberia; had strong leadership positions in the Episcopal Church USA and/or held leadership positions at Episcopal colleges in the U.S. The original directors believed that Cuttington College, at Suakoko, in the heartland of Liberia, deserved to be better known and to receive more adequate support. They launched a campaign in early 1964 to attract individuals, foundations and businesses with interests in Liberia to contribute to the College. Support came from a number of Episcopal colleges, dioceses and parishes.
Those directors stressed the fact that this institution in Africa, patterned on the American liberal arts plan, had established a fine reputation as being a college from which graduates had later succeeded at graduate schools in Europe and the U.S. It has played and will continue to play a significant role in the training of leaders for Liberia and elsewhere in Africa. The Bishop of New Hampshire once stated that the impact of Cuttington College on Liberia and Africa has been greater than that of Harvard, Princeton and Yale on the United States.
In 1962 the Association of Episcopal Colleges (AEC) was formed. In 1966, Dr. Arthur Ben Chitty, moved from Sewanee to New York to open the AEC offices in the Episcopal Church Center. One of his first initiatives was to expand the American colleges to include those abroad, Cuttington and Trinity College in the Philippines. In 1966 Cuttington was able to join the AEC with the benefit of a gift from Harvey S. Firestone, Jr. In 1969 after Arthur Ben visited Suakoko, Dr. Christian Baker, Cuttington’s president, wrote: “You have been our base in America.”
The Association of Episcopal Colleges (AEC), subsequently revived Friends in 1990 when civil war broke out in Liberia and the College was forced into exile. Dr. Melvin Mason, President, moved the College to Lawrenceville, Va. at the invitation of Dr. Thomas Law, President of St. Paul’s College. Dr. Wilbert LaMelle, president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and former US ambassador to the Republic of Kenya and to the Republic of Seychelles, became chairman of "Cuttington in Exile".
During that period, the Phelps-Strokes provided office space and gave a generous donation of $50,000 to support the Cuttington in Exile program. With assistance from the Association of Episcopal Colleges, Cuttington in Exile moved to St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, VA. The Cuttington in Exile program assisted seniors and juniors in Liberia at Cuttington to complete their educational pursuits by placing them in USA colleges and universities wherever possible. The AEC provided an office at the Episcopal Church Center in NY.
When the Association of Episcopal Colleges merged into The Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion (CUAC), it was agreed that Cuttington needed special attention during the civil war in Liberia. Friends was revived under the leadership of the Rt. Rev. Douglas Thurner, Bishop of New Hampshire, and the Rev. John L. Powers as its Executive Director. Directors were Dr. Linda Chisholm, Partnership for Service Learning, Dr. Stephen Kaifa, professor, County College of Morris, NJ, Margaret Larom, Episcopal Church Office; Seth Edwards, Chase Manhattan Bank, Nevin Brown, Partnership for Service Learning, along with Dr. Mason and other Cuttington faculty members. In 2003 Seth Edwards was instrumental in renewing the organization's IRS tax-exempt status New York State not for profit status.
Friends acted as a liaison for Cuttington and the Episcopal Church. It sourced potential donors across the U.S.and processed scholarships for Cuttington students. Identifying scholarship funding was always the highest priority. Other activities included preparing shipments of books and other resources to the College. During this time, Stephen Kaifa, a Cuttington graduate, agreed to assist in forming a Cuttington Alumni Association in the Americas and held the first meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. The primary function of that organization was fund-raising for Cuttington, particularly for scholarships.
Over the years, major funding sources for Cuttington have been the Presiding Bishop’s Fund; Trinity Church Wall Street Foundation and the US Federal government including USAID. Ed Holmes, a strong Cuttington supporter, organized a major grant from the U.S. State Department for repair of the water and sewer system at Cuttington.
In 1996, at the request of the Rt. Rev. Edward Neufville, Bishop of Liberia, Friends began a strategic plan for the creation of post-civil war Cuttington (called the Third Cuttington) to be implemented once the war ended. The project was chaired by Seth Edwards, whose father had been the first president of the 2nd Cuttington College at Suakoko. Dr. Mason, Linda Chisholm, Margaret Larom, Nevin Brown, Chancellor Rudolph Grimes, Dr. Stephen Kaifa, Dr. Henrique Tokpa and Dr. Tonneh Tokpa served on the committee. The project took a year to completed and was presented to Bishop Neufville in the summer of 1997.
Subsequently CUAC) received several grants from The Episcopal Church to manage receiving tuitions for students from relatives and supporters in the U.S., organized by General Secretary Dr. Donald Thompson.
Under the chairmanship of the Rt. Rev. Herbert A. Donovan, whose parents had been missionaries in Liberia, and Dr. Donald Thompson as AEC director, support for Cuttington continued. Dr. Tokpa, then Cuttington's president, asked Stephen Kaifa to take a one-year sabbatical to visit Cuttington and provide technical assistance. Dr. Kaifa recruited seven college colleagues to join him. They taught a variety of subjects including intermediate microeconomics and managerial finance; accounting; English literature; agriculture and computer science.
Upon returning, Dr. Kaifa assisted Cuttington’s administration, including managing U.S. tuition payments and purchasing. Over the years, the Episcopal Church’s Treasurer, Kurt Barnes, provided technical assistance on a number of initiatives.
When Canon James Callaway became General Secretary of CUAC in 2011, Dr. Henrique Tokpa served on the Association of Episcopal Colleges board. Jamie participated at Commencement in 2014 and organized Cuttington’s having their own PayPal account for managing U.S. tuitions directly. When Dr. Tokpa retired, his successor, Dr. Evelyn Kandakai, Liberia's former Minister of Education, joined the CUAC board. On her retirement, her successor, Dr. Herman Browne joined the CUAC board, succeeded by Dr. Romelle Horton, who left Liberia during the war to attend the Episcopal Voorhees University in Denmark, South Carolina.
Longtime Executive Council Liberian Covenant Committee member, Sandra Ferguson McFee succeeded Bishop Donovan as chair and Jamie Callaway continued as treasurer.
In 2017 Bishop and Dr. Donovan made the naming gift for the Herbert and Marion Donovan College of Health Sciences, dedicated in 2018. Friends has remained instrumental in Cuttington’s presence at General Conventions, along with hosting Bishops of Liberia. In 2024 with the Episcopal church’s General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, both Dr. Horton and Bishop James Sellee will be present at the Friends booth.
Friends has always responded to a call for assistance from Cuttington’s presidents. The current president, Dr. Romelle Horton, has shared the following priority needs of the institution:
• Scholarships for students, particularly for the President Scholarship, where assistance is provided to the valedictorian of all Episcopal Schools in Liberia and those from all high schools in Bong County where the University is located.
• Conversion of Power Needs to Solar Energy
• Create a State-of-the-Art Graduate School
• School Bus
• Computers
• Scholarships/Sponsor a Student/s
Since its inception in the early 1960s, the mission of the Friends of Cuttington has been to support and make known the University and its students.
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