Chap. 730.—An ACT to incorporate the Virginia union university, in the city
of Richmond, Virginia.

Approved March 4, 1896.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That W. W.
Landrum, Byron E. Huntly, A. Binga, Henry L. Moorehouse, mem-
bers of the board of trustees of Richmond theological seminary;
M. H. Bixby, Samuel H. Dismond, Mistress J. C. Hartshorn, Mistress
Andrew Comstock, members of the board of trustees of Hartshorn
memorial college, and Edward Lathrop, Z. D. Lewis, R. H. Bowling,
P. F. Morris, and their successors in office who shall be eligible to be
appointed and hold office as hereinafter provided, and who shall be
known as the board of trustees of Virginia union university, be, and
they are hereby, for the purpose of founding and maintaining a
christian institution of learning, constituted a body politic and cor-
porate by the name and style of the Virginia union unversity, and
by that name shall have perpetual succession and shall possess all
of the general powers belonging to bodies corporate under the laws
of the state of Virginia, and’ shall have power to use a common seal,
which may be altered at the pleasure of said corporators and their
successors ; to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded; to acquire
property by purchase, gift, exchange, devise or bequest, and to con-
vey the same, the amount or value of such property not to exceed at
any one time one million dollars; to receive by gift or bequest and
to hold in trust endowment funds and property, real or personal, to
be used in the maintenance of christian learning in the said Vir-
ginia union university as the donors may designate. And such
trusts may continue for such time as may be necessary to accomplish
the purposes for which they may be created. )
2. The said corporators or board of trustees shall have power to
found and maintain, as departments of said university, such col-
leges, professional schools and schools of mechanical and industrial
arts as to them may seem necessary to promote the object for
which they are made a body corporate; they shall also have power
to receive into affiliation with said university such colleges, profes-
sional schools, seminaries or academies located in the state of Virgi-
nia as they may deem wise, and upon such conditions as they may
from time to time determine; and to confer, subject to such condi-
tions as they may from time to time enact, such honors and such
degrees as are conferred by institutions possessing university powers.
8. Richmond theological seminary shall be the theological school,
and Hartshorn memorial college shall be the college for women of
said university. Each of these institutions shall be under the con-
trol and management of its own board of trustees, and shall retain
all of the rights, powers, privileges and immunities granted to
it by its present charter except as hereinafter provided; and pro-
vided, further, that each shall be subject to such general regula-
tions as the said board of trustees of the university shall adopt to
regulate such joint work as shall be performed in the higher classes
of instruction by the students in the men’s and women’s colleges, and
by the faculties of the colleges and professional schools of the uni-
versity. The said corporators or board of trustees shall also found
and maintain a college, which, as a department of said Virginia
union university, shall have the same rank, exercise the same powers,
and enjoy the same rights and privileges as Hartshorn memorial
college, and shall provide for men the same courses of instruction
and do the same work as Hartshorn memorial college shall provide
and do for women; and which shall also be under the control and
management of a board of nine trustees, five of whom shal! be Afro-

“an
Americans, and six of whom shall form a quorum for the transaction
of business; each member of said board shall be entitled to one
vote, either in person or by proxy, under such regulations as the
board of trustees of said university may from time to time establish.
At its first meeting this board shall divide its members into three
equal classes; the first class shall continue in office one year from
June first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, the second class twe
years from the same date, and the third class three years. All sub-
sequent appointments of members of the board shall be for three
years, except to fill vacancies caused by death, removal or resigna-
tion, which shall be only for the unexpired term of the class for
which the appointment is made. All members of this board shall
be appointed by the board of trustees of said university, the four
white members on the nomination of the executive board of the
American Baptist home mission society, and the five Afro-American
members on the nomination of the regular state convention of the
colored Baptist churches of the state of Virginia. The said univer-
sity board shall, however, have the right to reject any nominations
and require that new nominations shall be made; provided that
should nominations not be made at the time fixed by by-law, then
the said university board shall make the appointments on its own
selection without nomination.

4. The board of trustees of said Virginia union university shall
consist of fifteen regular members, five of whom shall be Afro-
Americans, and of such ex-officio members as are heininafter pro-
vided; nine of the regular members shall form a quorum, and each
member of the board, regular and ex-officio, shall be entitled to one
vote, either in person or by proxy, under such regulations as the
board may establish.

5. All members of said university board, and also of the board of
the college for men provided for in section three of this act, shall
be members of evangelical churches in good standing, and not less
than three-fourths of the members of each of these two boards shall
be members of churches now known as regular Baptists.

6. The said corporators or board of trustees, at their first meeting,
which shall be held not later than sixty days after the passage of
this act, shall organize by electing a president and secretary of their
own number, and a treasurer, who may or may not be a member of
the board. The term of office of each member of the board shall be
five years, but in order that only a part of the members shall retire
from office each year, the board shall, at its first meeting, divide
itself into five classes of three members each, and shall determine
who of its number shall continue ia office one year, two years, three
years, four years, and five years from June first, eighteen hundred
and ninety-six: provided the board shall have power to declare
vacant the place of any member who absents himself from two con-
secutive annual meetings without a satisfactory explanation.

7. The said university board shall be constituted as follows: four
members chosen from the trustees of Richmond theological sem-
inary, four members chosen from the trustees of Hartshorn memo-
rial college, four members chosen from the trustees of the college
for men provided for in section three of this act, and three members
chosen by said university from persons not members of any one of
the three said boards. One of the members chosen from each of
the said three boards shail be an Afro-American. The place of any
member of the university board shall become vacant when he ceases
to be a member of the board from which chosen. All vacan-
cies in said university board of trustees, whether caused by the ex-
piration of the term of office, resignation, or removal, or death, shall
be filled by the board itself. In the case of members who shall be
chosen from any of the said three boards the appointments shall be
made on the nomination of these boards. The said university board
shall, however, have the right to reject any nominations and request
that new nominations shall be made, but should these boards fail to
make nominations the said university board of trustees, after the
time fixed by by-law to make nominations has expired, shall
make the appointments on its own selection from the members of
said three boards. Appointments to fill vacancies caused by resig-
nation, removal, or death shall be for the unexpired term of office.

8. The said board of trustees shall have power to make and estab-
lish from time to time such by-laws, rules, and regulations, not con-
trary to the laws of the state of Virginia or of the United States, as
it may deem necessary for the transaction of all its business and for
the management of every department of said university. The board
shall also have power to appoint and remove the president of the
university and such professors, instructors, teachers, and other offi-
cers, agents, or servants as if may find necessary to employ in carry-
ing on the work of said university, and to determine the compensa-
tion for service of all employees of the university.

9. The corresponding secretary and superintendent of education
of the American Baptist home mission society and the chairman
and secretary of the board of trustees of each affiliated institution
shall be ex-officio members of the board of trustees of said univer-
sity; and the university in all its departments and its affiliated
schools, so long as they receive any pecuniary help from the Ameri-
can Baptist home mission society, shall be subject to visitation by
the superintendent of education of the society, and the teachers
selected and appointed by each board of trustees shall be subject to
approval by the executive board of said society.

10. The treasurer of said university, before entering upon the dis-
charge of his duties, shall give bonds, with such security and in such
penalty as the said board of trustees may require, to be made paya-
ble to said board of trustees for the time being and their successors,
and conditioned on the faithful performance of his duty under such
rules and regulations as may be adopted by said board of trustees.

11. The said corporators and their successors in office are forbid-
den by this charter to encumber by mortgage any part of the said
university grounds, buildings, library, apparatus, or furniture, and
they are also forbidden to use the principal of any trust or endow-
ment funds for any purpose whatsoever except that for which it is
designated by the donors.

12. Inasmuch as the welfare of society and not pecuniary gain is
the object for which this charter is granted, the members of this
corporation shall not be counted stockholders in the legal sense of
the term, and no dividends or profits shall ever be divided among
them, and there shall be no individual or personal liability for cor-
porate debts, but the entire property of saic aniversity shall be held
liable; provided that neither the property of Richmond theological
seminary nor that of Hartshorn memorial college shall be liable for
any debts created by the said university board; nor shall the means,
income, or corporate property, of whatever kind, be used for any
business, speculation, or other purpose than that for which this cor-
poration is created; all property therefor held and used solely for
the benevolent purposes set forth in this charter shall be exempt
from all state, county, or municipal taxation.

13. Whereas this act has been requested by the Richmond theo-
logical seminary and Hartshorn memorial college, its provisions are
binding upon each of these institutions.

14, This act shall take effect on its passage.