Texas Southern University has spent the last two years in the headlines because of financial mismanagement and the firing of previous president Priscilla Slade. Dr. John Rudley, the newly appointed president of TSU, discusses the new vision for the Houston historically Black university.
DI: How do you plan to solve TSU’s low retention and graduation rate problems and the school’s pending accreditation situation?
JR: If you dissect each issue, there is a solution for every last one. [The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] is questioning our ability to produce financial statements. We can produce financial statements, and we will make sure that we do that on time. We will have to suffer through a year’s probation before we can get the stain of the probation off our backs. That’s what my expertise is, finance. Certainly, it’s a solvable problem.
Graduation rates are a solvable problem. We are going to recommend to our board that it is important for TSU to end open-enrollment and open-admissions and begin to attract more quality —students who have made the decision that they want to go to college.
We really can’t spend all of our resources on students who are academically unprepared. We would like to offer them the opportunity to go to the community colleges that are here. We’re not, in effect, going to leave them without an option.
DI: Should Texas Southern decide to end its open-admissions policy, how will it go about recruiting top-tier students?
JR: This is the university that produced U.S. Reps. Barbara Jordan and George “Mickey” Leland, and NFL player Michael Strahan. Everyone can’t go to a Division I school. We have the programs here. At the end of four- or five-year careers, students can be admitted to the pharmacy program, or they can go to law school. We have a wonderful education college here. One of the strengths of Texas Southern is the line-up of quality programs. We have the full-breadth: public affairs, communications and business. You name it.
