After more than five years at the helm of the University System of Georgia, Chancellor Erroll Davis will retire Thursday. The next day he starts his new job as interim superintendent of the embattled Atlanta Public Schools.
Earlier this month he discussed the challenges facing the 35 colleges in the system and explained the move to k-12.
Q: You’re a retired engineer. You’re retiring from the University System. But you’re jumping into another job. When are you going to really retire?
A: I’m failing at retirement. [Laughs.] I do feel very strongly that this is something that needs to be done. I’m in the public service phase of my life and this fits in with that.
Q: Any interest in becoming superintendent?
A: No. I realize this position could last up to a year, but I don’t aspire to be a permanent superintendent.
Q: When you started as chancellor in 2006, no one could have predicted the recession. What were you unable to accomplish because of the economy?
A: I certainly can’t declare victory that we’re a well-honed machine working as a system. But most people understood the sense of urgency and that we didn’t have the luxury to debate what we would do if we had more time and money.
Q: You said most understood. Who didn’t?
A: I’m not going to name names. If you look at when we had the hastily put together $300 million worth of cuts [ordered by lawmakers in 2010 as they tried to fill a $1.1 billion budget hole], what we found was that some of the cuts were more thoughtful than others. Some you wondered why they weren’t done already.
Q: That list recommended eliminating academic departments and nursing programs, but cutting 4-H was the most controversial. Did you know what you were doing when you included that?
A: Let me say life is a learning experience, and I learned a lot more about 4-H than I probably ever wanted to know. ... 4-H is a wonderful program and obviously enjoys broad, wonderful support. But when all is said and done, it was on the list because it is not a core academic program of the University System. When put in a triage situation, you have to put it in its appropriate perspective.
Q: When money is tight it adds stress to tense situations, such as the relationship between the Legislature and the system. How would you have handled those relations differently?
A: I cannot argue that someone may not like my persona. They may not like my attitude. They may not like the way I respond to questions. And I understand the frustration of not being able to control a massive amount of money. That is not going to change. We achieved what we wanted to achieve in the Legislature. We didn’t lose that $300 million. ... The singular most important relationship is with the governor because that is where your budget originates. That’s where you have to sell what you’re asking for. I’m pretty sure if you were to ask the previous governor about our relations, I don’t think you would get anything but positives.
Q: The regents recently decided to ban illegal immigrants from the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and other competitive campuses that turn away academically qualified students. The Legislature passed a new Arizona-style anti-illegal immigration law. What do you think of this?
A: My view is that [the University System] is following the law. My belief is that people are better off educated than not educated. To hear on the one hand a fear of growing Hispanic gangs, many of whom may or may not be here legally, and then to hear, well, we shouldn’t let them in school. To just sit in wonderment, you don’t think there’s a correlation between education and crime? To hear on one hand, the need to be competitive in a global context but yet not the need to be aware of what is going on in other states on these issues, it’s almost a punitive environment as opposed to a problem-solving environment. More states are moving toward allowing undocumented students in-state tuition, and they’re not notoriously liberal states like California or Connecticut. ... We are always hiring people from across the country. They don’t want to come into environments of hate.
Q: When lawmakers overhauled the HOPE scholarship this year, there was little chance they would add a needs-based component. You have been among those arguing for a needs-based scholarship. Why? [Note: Davis has a family foundation that provides college scholarships.]
A: One of the reasons we have a rather substantial uneducated base of citizenry is because we don’t have needs-based aid.
You go to the annual valedictorian event at the Governor’s Mansion, and you meet these valedictorians going to Yale, Harvard and MIT. ... The thing that stunned me this valedictorian day was when I saw people going to the University of Alabama. I believe we have schools in this state that are substantially better than the University of Alabama. When I talked to the parents, I got stories that the other schools essentially bought them and paid for it all. We need programs that will keep those students in the state.
Q: Maybe they could afford to stay if tuition wasn’t increasing so much.
A: We remain a low-tuition state but yes, it has been moving up rapidly. What has happened is state support has moved rapidly down. ... We are at 1994 levels of support per student from the state. Since I’ve been here, we’ve gained about 60,000 students. You talk about quality and this isn’t high school. We don’t conserve costs by packing more people into a classroom. One of the real questions the state has to ask itself is how much does it value education? It’s the issue of, is having an educated citizenry just to the benefit of the citizen or is it to the benefit to us all? ... As I have said more than once to the Legislature, you don’t create the future by eating your children today.
Q: Cost isn’t the only issue. Some point to a disconnect between the knowledge colleges say students should learn and the skills employers expect graduates to have.
A: They would like us to train them for the jobs they have today. That is not our job to train people. That is the job of the technical college system to train people for today’s jobs. What they can complain about is if a student can’t write, if a student can’t read or communicate or can’t create or innovate or discover how to make their business better. Our job is to prepare them for jobs of the future, not your business of today.
Q: How would you change the system to prepare students for the future?
A: I’d restructure it in a way that immediately people would dislike; that is every student should have three years of rigorous liberal arts.
In 1900 in order to graduate from University of Wisconsin, you had to have four years of Greek. You were an educated person when you got out of college in 1900. ... Back then going to college was about ideas and learning. It was not about, can I get through here as fast as I can and get a job.
Knowledge on the job is fleeting. You can learn job knowledge if you’re smart enough to learn. You can learn enough to be effective at just about any job. But what you can’t learn is how to write, how to comprehend and how to think. ... My sense is if you understand culture, if you understand politics, if you understand anthropology, you are in a much better position to lead organizations than if you understand a narrow discipline.
Q: It may surprise people hearing this from an engineer.
A: I’m a reformed engineer.
Q: A reformed engineer and a soon-to-be retired chancellor. Have you had fun?
A: This a job where you get up in the morning, and you look in the mirror and you never have to wonder why you’re doing this. You are creating the future of this state and it’s an important job. I don’t regret it at all.
If someone were to say, would you like to do the last five years over, I would say absolutely not. It wasn’t all a bed of roses. I was in the military for a number of years and benefited greatly from that, but I wouldn’t want to repeat that experience, either.
About the Author
