With Ivy League institutions providing financial relief that may result in higher enrollment of students of color, the next president of Howard University will need to address the institution’s financial and structural impediments in order to compete for top students, Gen. Colin Powell, chair of the presidential search committee, said this week.
Powell’s comments came during a town hall meeting held this week to address students, alumni, faculty and community concerns about what they want to see in the next president.
A candidate who can address the lack of financial resources for students and faculty is imperative, said Powell. “Schools like Yale and Harvard are relieving the financial burdens for potential students, making it easier [for them to recruit students of color], and harder for us,” he added.
It will be another five months before the board of trustees announces the university’s 16th president, who will replace retiring president H. Patrick Swygert, but Powell said the board is working hard to examine the credentials of the several candidates who have applied.
Swygert announced his retirement, effective at the end of this academic year, last spring, weeks after the Faculty Senate Council called for his resignation. Howard University’s council stated that Swygert’s fiscal mismanagement has hurt the academic quality of the school. Last year, the council, which represents more than 1,000 professors, voted 16 to 2 with one abstention to send a letter to the board of trustees forcing Swygert’s resignation.
Addison Barry Rand, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, sat alongside Powell during the presidential town hall meeting held in the WHUT television studio Tuesday afternoon to address students, alumni, faculty and community concerns. The event was invitation only.
Prompted by a 20-city listening tour and hundreds of letters of concerns from the Howard University community, Rand assembled a comprehensive list of issues the new president must be equipped to tackle. Topping the list was faculty pay and infrastructure renovations and repairs.
