By Reginald Stuart
Fisk University has a special place in the heart of retired Nashville banker and businessman Bill Collier. In addition to being a Fisk graduate, his grandmother, mother and father, two sisters and two of his children are Fisk graduates. Two aunts are also alums. Indeed, the Collier family has lived the Fisk experience, its up and downs, up close and personal for decades.
With seven grandchildren rapidly approaching college age, Collier says Fisk may someday claim four generations of the Collier family as alums. It largely depends on the presence and performance of Dr. H. James Williams, Jr., set to be officially inaugurated this week as the Fifteenth President of Fisk, Nashville’s oldest institution of higher education.
“So far, so good,” Collier said, echoing other Fisk alumni and observers across the country who have seen Fisk endure one ordeal to the next since the mid-1970’s, steadily losing much of its stature, grace, financial stamina and respect as it went through at least 12 chief executives during that period.
Dr. Williams, who left a solid job as Dean of the School of Business at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University to take on the Fisk assignment, is being seen as a promising light at the end of a long tunnel.
“Fundraising is improving and his (Dr. Williams’) acceptance in the community has been very good,” said Collier, who recalls having “great expectations” when the new president’s selection was announced. Collier, who did not know of Dr. Williams until his selection, said he hoped at the time the choice of a new leader would “bring it (Fisk) back to full character.”
Indeed fundraising is on the rebound, even among Fisk alumni like Collier who became disenchanted with university’s past leadership in recent years as it pushed to financially save Fisk by selling key assets, most importantly part ownership of its priceless Stieglitz collection of art of photographs donated to the school by the late artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
The $30 million cash infusion from selling half ownership in the art collection gave the university enough funds to pay off years of accumulating debt, repay its small endowment outstanding loans and have a little operating cash to carry it for a while.
Alumni stepped forward last year, contributing enough to help the university operate in the black for the first time in years. That dramatic infusion also boosted the university’s ability to offer more financial aid to students at a time when more than a handful learned they were losing access to a federal loan program, the Parent PLUS Loan (PPL), just as they were arriving at the Fisk campus to enroll.
Student financial aid is essential at Fisk where 80 per cent to 90 percent of its students require some kind of financial aid—combinations of scholarships, grants and loans—to enroll in college a full-time students.
Enrollment is slowly rebounding, despite challenges facing potential students’ families who were denied college loan assistance from the federal government after it tightened criteria for qualifying for a loan. Enrollment, which had sunk to just over 533 in 201, is officially 645 today.
The university is expecting to enroll 720 students this fall, based on receiving some 5,318 applications for admission as of the beginning of April, the highest number in 12 years, university officials say. This time a year go, Fisk had received about 2,979 applications for admission, according to university records.
Most important, Dr. Williams came on board in time to help the university succeed in getting the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC) to remove Fisk from its “probation” status and reaffirm the university’s accreditation. The panel had refusing the university’s prior requests three years in a row, saying it was continuously failing to meet numerous SASCOC performance standards. It will be 2019 before the reaffirmation status requires a full review.
The clean bill of health, issued this past December, came after months of effort by Dr. Williams and his reorganized and strengthened leadership team to carefully and attentively listen to the SACSCOC and specifically address the agency’s concerns. Among other things, the SACSCOC had questioned the qualifications of the university’s leadership to its financial viability to its internal business controls. His candor and sincerity quickly suggested he was the competent breath of fresh air the university needed, if it was to persevere.
“It seemed he had a lot of spirit behind him and wanted to see Fisk restored to the eminence of the past,” said Fisk alumnus and former Fisk trustee Will Carter of Washington, D.C, reflecting on his initial impressions of Dr. Williams.
Carter, who said he expected to be in Nashville this week to participate in the inauguration activities, said he, like many alumni, has been “very impressed” with Dr. Williams, that he is “very well liked” and alumni are beginning to give. The big thing was to get us off (SASCOC) probation,” said Carter. The big assignment ahead, he said, “is keeping Fisk in the black.
He had fundraising experience and that was one of the main needs of Fisk,” said Carter.
The immediate crisis mode has passed, Dr. Williams acknowledged in a recent interview, noting the academic credentials of the university were never challenged and much progress has been made on the standards that were.
On the financial side, a series of business processes have been implemented and more will be, Dr. Williams said, all aimed at making sure the business of Fisk is run in a manner that avoids deficits that had plagued the institution for years.
“We’re working on managing our finances, managing our budget appropriately, managing our investments and fine tuning our processes,” said Dr. Williams, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and lawyer.
So confident is Dr. Williams in his financial agenda for the foreseeable future, that the university budget, estimated to range between $27 million to $30 million a year, is structured for the next fiscal year beginning July 1, 2014, to include no employee furloughs.
During the current fiscal year that began last July 1, Williams imposed day furlough (equivalent to a 12 per cent pay cut) that included him. For the next fiscal year, the budget calls for the university to return to its normal budget.
Getting Fisk back to the level of recognition and respect many of its alumni and long time supporters are seeking is going to take time, a lot of money and hard work, Dr. Williams said.
“I was surprised at how little people know about the academic prowess of the university,” Dr. Williams said, assessing the response he’s gotten at speaking engagements like the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, among other influential groups. ‘When I speak I try to share with them the academic story of Fisk,” he said, noting the university gets a third of its annual budget from the federal government and much of that is to support scientific research.
Addressing claims by his predecessors that the university needed approximately $100 million to right its ship, Dr. Williams declined to offer a specific number, only acknowledging Fisk needs much more funding was hoping to raise a significant amount from a “comprehensive campaign” over the next five years.
“We have folks who are receptive to what we want to do, but want a little more proof that we are doing things differently,” said Dr. Williams who has spent considerable time wooing the city’s deep pockets and influential citizens, pointing out the university’s high points, most overshadowed in the past decade by its lack of a public presence. What was known, he has learned as he’s visited the city, was often as negative as it was positive.
“Most people in power (in Nashville) know Fisk,” said Dr. Williams. “Whether they had a good feeling about Fisk is a different thing,” he said. Impressions and feelings about the historic university run the gamut, said Dr. Williams, reflecting on the networking he’s done since moving to the Music City. “I’m trying to make sure I’m in the right places, getting people to know Fisk authentically.”
Collier, who has seen his share of Fisk presidents come and go, says Dr. Williams seems to have a believable plan. Asked if that means he, Collier, would urge his grandchildren to attend the university, he said: “If he (Dr. Williams) can deliver, I certainly would.” That’s the opposite of what he would have said just four years ago, Collier added. He thinks this president is ready for the challenge.
The inauguration festivities for Dr. Williams are set to begin Thursday with a Trustees’ Luncheon honoring Fisk First Lady Carole Campbell Williams. The officials Investiture of the President is the centerpiece of a series of festivities set for the next day, Friday, that include an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast. The inauguration celebration is set to continue Saturday, with the day ending with the President’s Scholarship Gala. A Family Worship service is set for Sunday, April 13, in the Fisk Chapel.
Photo by: Daryl T. Stuart