Clark Atlanta University is under new leadership.
Outgoing president Carlton Brown completed his seventh year at the historically black college last week. His successor, Ronald Johnson, formerly a business dean at Texas Southern University in Houston, became the school's fourth president on July 1.
Before coming to Clark Atlanta, Brown served as president at Savannah State and in senior administrative positions at Hampton University, and served as executive vice president and provost at Clark Atlanta before being tapped to lead the institution.
Detractors say Brown’s leadership style at times led to unnecessary problems. Early in his tenure, for example, Brown laid off more than 50 full-time faculty blamed on an enrollment crisis. Those layoffs led to wrongful-termination lawsuits, some of which are still embroiled in litigation. Brown says all his actions were in Clark Atlanta’s best interests.
Q: What prompted your decision to leave now?
A: The situations that I've inherited at the places I've been brought to work have been all-consuming. I've loved every place I've been, but they consume your whole life, done right. Done right, you cannot live like normal people because there is too much to do, so that means that family pays the price.
Another critical moment was the birth of of my only grandchild, when she was about to turn two (years old) and I realized I had seen her only three times, and that’s unacceptable.
Also the series of issues and needs that higher education has right now, many of my colleagues have been asking me to address in a larger way, so I’m going to spend some time dealing with key issues, particularly those impacting HBCUs.
(Brown blogs about the environment for Huffington Post, is a board member of MomentUs, a collaborative of sustainability groups; and an advisory board member of the innovation laboratory Stanford University Epicenter. Brown says Clark Atlanta will be his last full-time presidency.)
Q: How are you leaving Clark Atlanta? How have you sustained the university during your tenure?
A: This is an institution that has had its difficulties but has continued to grow and progress. We had to make some big moves in my first year as president. The recession hit us hard, leading us to lay off 50-plus people to right-size the institution.
Since that time we have become a much more efficient institution … We’ve had six years of clean audits. We have renovated six buildings, two which are LEED Silver buildings. We’ve rebuilt and strengthened research infrastructure and are also rebuilding institutional advancement to prepare for major fundraising.
Q: What are some limitations facing the university?
A: Money: The cost of doing business continues to rise. As enrollment and research continue to rise and generate revenue, that has to rise.Undergraduate enrollment needs to grow. We'll be about 3,600 (students) this fall, which makes it easy to grow to 4,000, which puts us in a place where anything is possible.
Q: How is the relationship with other members schools of the Atlanta University Center? Incoming President Johnson has already talked about strengthening those ties.
A: I think it's strong than it's ever been. Six years ago me (and other AUC leaders) set out on this course to band together to expand all possible collaborative opportunities and how to grow them. That has not changed. We're putting our police forces together for overlapping police patrols, working together on community outreach and are looking for more ways we can work together, and accepting the ways that we don't. We're four very different institutions that happen to be banded together by history and some common need and that has to be recognized.
Q: How do you ensure students still see Clark Atlanta as a viable option for their education?
A: Students being attracted to Clark Atlanta is not an issue … It's enabling them to close the deal to be here and remain here that are the issues. That has to do with how we manage and secure additional resources. That is where as we move to the future, I'm looking to this community to respond in helpful ways.
Students have all kinds of choices for college, but there are still some unique things that only this place can provide. Those things are a sense of purpose and place unfettered by matters of race. The climate in which you can grow without questions about why you’re going in those directions. A replication of what most white students get to experience, the compatibility of culture and intention.
What others say about Brown:
Mitchell Benjamin, attorney for five former CAU employees Brown laid off in 2009
With the wrongful termination cases, “I don’t think the university was well served. They are not growing. I’m not saying that’s all his fault, but from an outsider and limited view of dealing with him, I don’t think these decisions he made were helpful to the university. I think the university is in better shape with him being gone than with him being there.”
Frank Gooden, Clark Atlanta alumnus
Gooden has written a number of letters to the Clark Atlanta community in hopes of improving the school.
“My concern was fundraising. The president of a small private school needs to be spending (a large amount of time) fundraising.
“I have no negative feelings against Brown. My contention was and still is that we all have to get involved and raise a lot of money for our school because the traditional sources of funding have dried up. I’m hopeful that the new president will do well.”
Georgianne Thomas, longtime Clark Atlanta instructor
“I would give Brown credit for renovating buildings and picking up the look and feel of Clark Atlanta. You could also see him any day of the week picking up litter on campus. Students had access to him, which was not always the case here. I was impressed with that. I would call him a promenade president because that’s where you could catch him.”
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