white colleges and universities. Seven of these institutions are located in the South, while Howard, Lincoln, Cheyney, and Morgan are located in the Mid-Atlantic states. Each of these institutions are co-educational with the exception of Morehouse College, which is an all-male institution and Spelman College, an all-female institution. All institutions are currently accredited by such organizations as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. History The founding of two members, Lincoln University and Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, predate the American Civil War. The remaining members were founded in the late 19th century except for Xavier University of Louisiana, which was founded in 1915 by Saint Katharine Drexel. During the relevant time period, these institutions upheld a tradition of academic excellence. In 1952, Fisk was the first historically black institution to charter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Morehouse continues to be the top baccalaureate-origin institutions of black men who earned doctoral degrees. Howard continually leads all universities in producing the highest number of black doctorate recipients and has the highest endowment of any HBCU in the nation. Spelman College has consistently been recognized as one of the top ten women's college in the nation. George Washington Carver conducted many of his noteworthy peanut experiments while a professor at Tuskegee. Similarly, the largest percentage of African-Americans holding graduate and professional degrees, attended these colleges as undergraduates. From 1897 – 1909, W.E.B. Du Bois conducted the Atlanta University Studies, a “systematic, social-scientific inquiries into the condition and lives of African Americans” and penned The Souls of Black Folk (1903) “perhaps the most influential work of his generation on the African American experience” during his first term as a professor of economics, history and sociology at what was at the time Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta). Dubois left Atlanta University in 1909, the same year that he co-founded the NAACP and returned to Atlanta University in 1934, where he published his last major work, Black Reconstruction in America (1935) and remained until his retirement in 1944. Current status Prior to the 1960s, all majority-white southern colleges and universities excluded people of color. During that era, a handful of black elite schools attracted the best African-American students and faculty. However, since the 1960s, these institutions have had great difficulty in competing with Ivy League and other historically white colleges for top students and faculty The North