Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is a public, co-educational historically black university that is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Cheyney University has a 275acre campus that is located in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, a community within Thornbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania and Thornbury Township, Delaware County (school straddles both counties), in the state of Pennsylvania. Cheyney University is a member-school of Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The university offers bachelor's and master's degrees. In November 2015, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education placed Cheyney University on probation. Administrators are required to address a variety of issues including finances, leadership, and assessment of learning.HistoryBuilt on land donated by the prominent Cheyney family, the university was founded as the African Institute in February 1837 and renamed the Institute of Colored Youth in April 1837, Cheyney University is the oldest African-American institution of higher learning.Unlike Lincoln University and some others HBCUs, Cheyney did not award degrees until 1914, when it adopted the curriculum of a normal school . The African Institute was founded by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist who bequeathed $10,000, one-tenth of his estate, to design and establish a school to educate people of African descent and prepare them as teachers.
