Huckaby: Setting the record straight

On June 5, The Telegraph published an opinion piece regarding the University System of Georgia that contained significant misinformation about the historically black colleges and universities that are part of the USG. Here is my response to set the record straight on the priority and significant support the Board of Regents and I provide to Albany State University, Fort Valley State University and Savannah State University regarding their naming of their presidents, their funding and their capital and building projects.

First, the board and I are very proud of these institutions and their roles in serving our students, their local communities, their regions and the state. Additionally, we are very proud of the presidents that lead these institutions and thank them for their outstanding service and steadfast commitment to public higher education in the state of Georgia.

My obligation and that of the Board of Regents is to hire the most qualified individual to lead an institution, period. In our university system we take several approaches to do so. We have either formed presidential search committees, as we did to identify and name a president for Georgia Southern University recently. Or we have appointed an interim president, whom we have later named as a permanent president after a period of time in which the candidate has demonstrated proven, trusted leadership and who is clearly serving in the best interest of the institution and its students, faculty, staff and alumni.

The latter approach is precisely the path we took in naming presidents for Albany State University, Fort Valley State University and Savannah State University, and we are fortunate to have such leaders in place. The authors of the opinion piece did not question the qualifications of these individuals to lead, only how they were selected. Our purpose, again, is to select the most qualified person as president, and we did so in each of these cases.

The authors claim that naming presidents without a search is unique to the HBCUs. That is demonstrably untrue. We also used this same approach in the appointment of the presidents serving at Clayton State University, Dalton State College, East Georgia State College, Georgia Gwinnett College and South Georgia State College. Clearly, the op-ed authors’ contention that the appointment of permanent presidents is evidence of discrimination is factually incorrect and blatantly false.

Regarding the op-ed’s false charge of disproportionate funding for Albany State University, Fort Valley State University and Savannah State University, the truth of the matter is that we generously fund these institutions even as enrollment has declined dramatically at two of them. In this current fiscal year, we funded these three institutions at an average of $5,636 per student compared with an average of $4,576 per student at peer institutions in our state.

We have also funded significant large and small capital projects for Albany State University, Fort Valley State University and Savannah State University unlike the op-ed alleged. For example, these three institutions alone have received more than $48 million in funding for projects in fiscal years 2015 through 2017.

Meanwhile, the authors of the op-ed were absolutely incorrect about the lack of time and attention given to these three institutions, in particular Fort Valley and Albany State. In terms of time spent with administrators, special meetings with the alumni leadership, briefings with key elected officials close to the institutions, and visits to the campus by university system staff, over the last three years we have dedicated significant time and attention.

The bottom line: the opinions cited by the authors simply do not hold water. If their goal is to help these institutions, I suggest they get their facts straight and be more actively involved as supportive alumni of these institutions during the difficult times they currently face. We need alumni and other stakeholders to join with us, the faculty, staff and students in ensuring a strong future for these institutions.

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Huckaby: Setting the record straight."