In her desire to lead with excellence, determination and intention, she entered and completed two specialized HBCU leadership programs: the Higher Education Leadership Foundation (HELF) — co-funded by Wiley College President Herman J. Felton, Huston-Tillotson University President Melva K. Wallace, former Wilberforce University President Elfred Anthony Pinkard, and Clinton College Chief Information and Strategy Officer Gregory Deas — and the Clark Atlanta University’s Executive Leadership Institute (CAU ELI). She went in for specialized training on how to navigate issues like budget cuts and gross underfunding, administrative issues, campus maintenance issues, and endowment disparities within the HBCU context. The less anticipated benefit was that she would gain an invaluable network of other women leaders, mentors, and speakers who formerly led HBCUs.
“Being able to engage with them and learn from their wisdom allowed us to gain the historical context of women, presidencies and HBCUs. Having the opportunity to interface with retired women’s college presidents who are champions, in their own right, was deeply inspiring,” she says.
Because HBCUs face daunting challenges unfamiliar to other higher education institutions, there is a need for professional development rooted in the cultural context of these institutions from leaders who have been where they’re going. The cohorts that emerge from these programs – totaling more than 600 leaders to date – have gone on to lead some of America’s HBCUs that produce the next executives, scientists, and professionals in varying fields.
Weeks of classes, conversations, mentoring, insight, and, what some would call a reality check, allows prospective and current HBCU leaders to determine if the presidential route is really their calling.
No Sugarcoating
At the CAU ELI, there are thirteen core competencies taught to their cohorts. “Number one is how to build a high-performance team and an executive cabinet. So, for example, all presidents need to know how to navigate their board and your executive cabinet. That includes vice presidents and chief financial officers,” says Dr. Phyllis Dawkins, the program’s executive director. “Number two is cultivating relationships and networking. That one is very, very important, as it relates to fundraising, working with your students, cultivating relationships, and networks.”
The format of the programs aren’t designed to sugarcoat the roles they’re preparing themselves to enter. Smith recalls the classes and discussions regarding financial and crisis management are the two that she’s used, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. During March 2020, when the pandemic changed how the world socialized and lived, she had to revisit those lessons to keep the flow of success for students, faculty, staff, and their interactions that keeps the university a thriving entity.
Smith said budget cuts have been one of her biggest recent challenges. “We received state funding and there was some discussion about cutting our core funding,” she shares. “This would have had a huge impact on the services that we deliver and offer to our students. It would have also had an impact on our academics and just the overall experience that our students receive here at Harris.”
HELF and CAU ELI don’t placate for the college and corporate leaders who get seats into the programs. They enter with clear goals to learn crisis and financial management, student relationships, campus maintenance, and all that HBCUs have historically faced and overcome. Their missions are to stabilize leadership and the institutions they serve.
A Presidency That Extends Beyond the Campus
Dr. Walter Kimbrough, Jr., former president of Dillard and Philander Smith universities, remembers a recent phone call that reminded him that the reach of presidents at historically Black colleges and universities extends far beyond the parameters of campus.
“One of my students I recruited at Philander Smith in 2007 recently passed away,” Kimbrough recalls. “This was almost 20 years ago, and her mom reached out to me and said, ‘you’re her president.’ I told her, ‘I’m there.’ That’s what the HBCU presidency is about and that’s what people don’t understand.”
Kimbrough, who currently serves as executive vice president for research and member engagement at the United Negro College Fund, has studied the impact and longevity of college presidents – particularly, HBCU presidents – since his doctoral dissertation. He’s dedicated a large portion of his career supporting these leaders who, in many cases, also find themselves serving as community activists, confidantes, fundraisers, accountants, spiritual leaders, and, for some students, mothers and fathers.
Preparing Leaders for the Full Weight of the Role
Comprehending the breadth of responsibilities of an HBCU presidency requires not just preparation before taking office, but support throughout presidential tenures.
Dr. Herman J. Felton, Jr., president and CEO of Wiley college and co-founder of HELF, said his team is intently working to create a pipeline of strong presidential candidates that specialize in the needs of HBCUs when it comes to campus, culture and community. “We bring in individuals who understand how to make good decisions, lead people, understand how to manage up and understand that crisis management is more than ‘no comment’,” he explains.
“You must understand business, finance and more than what the management level is. But also, what it means to service debt and how much are you servicing? What is your fixed cost? Sometimes its personnel, sometimes that’s deferred maintenance. You must understand the entire academic enterprise,” Felton continues.
One of the unspoken advantages of both of these programs is the fact that leaders gain not only the tangible skills of board management, fundraising, and crisis communications, but access to a network of other leaders who have been in the president’s seat who can help them navigate the nuances associated with the HBCU presidency. This support helps undergird stronger presidential tenures, which in turn boosts alumni trust and promotes greater student engagement, increased fundraising, and broader stakeholder support.
Recently, UNCF announced a partnership with HELF and CAU ELI to bring the sector together “to do the work to figure out how can we better prepare people who aspire to be an HBCU president and then how do we better support people who are in those roles,” according to Kimbrough.
Taking these leaders under their wings to equip them for seen and unseen, takes courage and a belief in the impact of HBCUs. These institutions produce some of this nation’s top professionals and they are the livelihood of so many black communities. Each leader holds this legacy in their hands and when they fail, the effects are widespread.
“If you have a lot of turnovers at the presidential level, and then you get a new president, it can take them a couple of years to build out their executive leadership team,” Kimbrough explains. “If that president is gone in two years, you’re in this consistent cycle of instability. That negatively impacts all of those key metrics that everybody wants to improve.”
This story originally ran in the August 6 issue of The EDU Ledger magazine.
