A conversation with outgoing Johnson C. Smith University President Dorothy C. Yancy

Though Dr. Dorothy C. Yancy says she had “no intention” of assuming the presidency of Johnson C. Smith University when tapped to lead her alma mater on an interim basis in 1994, rave reviews of her passion to propel JCSU to new heights led the search committee to declare that they had found in Yancy what they were looking for, and more. In particular, her determination to keep JCSU on the cutting edge of technological innovation gained the university national renown, as in 2000 when JCSU became the first historically Black “Laptop” university, issuing IBM Thinkpads to all of its students. Subsequently, JCSU was ranked among the top 50 most wired small colleges in the United States by Yahoo Internet Life magazine.

Yancy’s own life has been filled with many milestones: She was the first Black woman to helm JCSU, and previously she was the first to be promoted and tenured as a full professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2001, Yancy also became the first woman to be elected president of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Yancy’s fundraising prowess at JCSU was unprecedented. Since 1994 she has raised in excess of $145 million for the university and has more than tripled JCSU’s endowment. Additionally, applications to Johnson C. Smith have increased four-fold under her leadership.

Yancy will step down from the JCSU presidency this month, and in an interview with Diverse, she offers a retrospective on her 14- year tenure.

DI: When tapped to be interim JSCU president in 1994, you said you were not interested in taking the job permanently. What changed your mind?
DY: I began to work, and I found the work to be challenging and exciting, and I also felt an obligation to give back. I’m a graduate of Johnson C. Smith. I had been out in the working world for 20-odd years, and I have always felt that Johnson C. Smith gave me a firm foundation to be an academic, and that I needed to give back, other than just to write a check and come to homecoming and do the regular support things that graduates do.