As historically black colleges boom, new leadership on tap

It was a hopeful changing of the guard last week in Greensboro, as Stanley Battle, the new chancellor at N.C. A&T State University, grasped the ceremonial mace while hundreds of Aggies watched.

The event marked a new beginning for the UNC system's largest historically black university after months of unpleasant news. The interim chancellor, Vic Hackley, had uncovered financial abuse and administrative chaos so serious that it required a SWAT team of UNC auditors to investigate.

Hackley, widely praised for his handling of the situation, barely had time to hand the reins to Battle before he was dispatched to his next assignment: dealing with problems at Fayetteville State University, where a new nursing program is in jeopardy and the campus awaits the results of a state audit. The chancellor of four years, T.J. Bryan, had abruptly announced her resignation just as Battle's welcoming party got under way.

Four of the state's five public historically black universities will have new leaders within a month, and some say an infusion of fresh vision is in order. While the campuses have experienced explosive growth, fatter budgets and campus makeovers during the past few years, their graduation rates are anemic, and a few academic programs are in trouble. As the UNC system looks to a continued enrollment boom and new accountability measures, the new leaders will be key to the success of their campuses.

UNC President Erskine Bowles vows that the problems unearthed at N.C. A&T State and Fayetteville State will be fixed. The rapid growth of the historically black institutions has, in some cases, outstripped systems and staff capacity, Bowles said, and he will rely heavily on the new chancellors.

"I want leaders who are capable to put in a strong infrastructure and to manage these organizations to allow them to grow and grow successfully," Bowles said in a recent interview.

Campuses get more attention

For generations, the five campuses -- Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, N.C. A&T State, N.C. Central and Winston-Salem State -- endured inadequate funding and inferior facilities. The schools, founded to serve blacks who were excluded from higher education, have always played second fiddle to the state's larger, predominantly white universities.

That began to change when the UNC system put a greater focus on them during the tenure of former UNC President Molly Broad. Facing a huge increase in the college-age population, Broad and the UNC board made plans to expand the historically black campuses and help them operate more efficiently.

There were plenty of doubters. No longer did historically black institutions have a monopoly on African-American students; they had to work to attract applicants. Black students were increasingly choosing schools such as UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State and East Carolina University.

In 2000, voters agreed to finance a $3.1 billion building boom on the state's universities and community colleges. About $426 million flowed to the five historically black campuses, which were in dire need of new science labs and updated dorms. In addition, the state legislature allocated nearly $24 million to the campuses during the past seven years to pump up operations such as recruiting, marketing and admissions.

It worked. The campuses, with modern buildings and new academic offerings, swelled with nearly 12,000 additional students -- a 52 percent increase since 2000. Elizabeth City State grew by nearly a third, while Winston-Salem State nearly doubled its student body.

The incoming WSSU chancellor, Donald Reaves, will start next month at a campus that looks dramatically different from the way it did 10 years ago. "You're going to have growing pains," said Reaves, who spent much of his career at two of the nation's most elite campuses, Brown University and the University of Chicago. "The way I think about this is, you have to give the institution time to catch up to the growth ... it all isn't going to happen overnight."