Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover announced Monday she is retiring from her position leading the historically Black university, a decade after she returned home to lead her alma mater.
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Glover will depart at the end of the spring 2024 semester, she announced during a news conference from the TSU campus.
“Serving as president of Tennessee State University has been the honor of a lifetime,” Glover said. “This is where I got my start. I came to Tennessee State University, graduated in 1974. From 1974 to 2024, a 50-year blessing. And now it’s only appropriate that I announce my retirement from the place that gave me my start.”
Now, Glover, 70, said her voice is needed on a “more national platform,” though she had no specific plans for her future.
“My skillset, leadership, voice is needed now much more than ever as we fight to protect access and equity,” she said.
The Rev. Gerald Durley, a student government association president in the 1960s, coined Glover’s impending exit not as retirement but “rewirement.”
“When I heard that Dr. Glenda Glover was getting ready to rewire, I didn’t know what to do,” he said Monday. “She is not retiring, she is rewiring. She’s not done. She’s got other things to do on a National scale.”
She was tapped to lead the university in 2012, succeeding interim president Portia Holmes Shield, who served two years after the resignation of Melvin Johnson.
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“It’s a great honor when God calls you home,” Glover said after her election to president. “This is a great homecoming.”
HBCU advocacy, praise from students
Glover, a Memphis native, graduated from TSU in 1974 and went on to earn an MBA from Clark Atlanta University, a law degree from Georgetown and a doctorate from George Washington University. She worked in business from 1976 to 1990, when she became a faculty member at Howard University to teach accounting.
In 1994, Glover moved to Jackson State University in Mississippi, where she was the dean of the college of business before she was tapped to lead TSU in 2012. She took over in January 2013, making her one of the longest serving current presidents of a public university in Tennessee. In recent years, Glover has held national leadership and advisory positions related to historically Black colleges and universities.
“HBCUs remain at the frontline of educating students who need access to the transformative power of higher education despite discriminatory funding. We often ask the question, ‘Why do we still need HBCUs?’” Glover said during a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor. “The question should be, how do these colleges and universities have so little and produce so much?”
Student Government Association President Derrell Taylor said Glover created an environment at TSU that fosters opportunity for Black students.
“There’s been so many different opportunities that students have had to elevate and express what it truly means to achieve higher education,” Taylor said Monday. “So many opportunities for faculty and staff to develop careers and develop new passions and new aspirations each and every day.”
Shaun Wimberly Jr. worked closely with Glover and the Board of Trustees as the student representative on the board.
“President Glover has done a lot for this university, a lot for this community, a lot for students like me,” he said. “Students like the ones who came to this school and did not know what they wanted to do, but they saw President Glover. I thought to myself, ‘what if I could be an HBCU president?'”
Retirement at complex time for TSU
Glover’s retirement comes during a complex period for the university. In 2021, a Tennessee legislative analysis found the state severely underfunded TSU, the only land-grant, historically Black university in the state. TSU was shorted as much as $544 million in recent decades after Tennessee failed to appropriately allocate TSU equitable land-grant funds.
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Amid a nationwide enrollment boom at historically Black colleges and universities, TSU recorded its highest fall enrollment ever last year. But the influx of students clashed with campus housing shortages and skyrocketing Nashville rents, leaving TSU to house students in local hotels.
In February, Tennessee State Comptroller Jason Mumpower released an audit finding university administration launched an extensive enrollment campaign and quadrupled the scholarship budget despite being aware of a critical housing shortage. Mumpower said the housing issue was “only a symptom of a much larger management problem,” and the report highlighted “management’s disregard of basic financial controls.”
Though Glover acknowledged TSU made mistakes in the process, she vigorously defended her school and warned against a proposal backed by some Republican lawmakers to vacate TSU’s Board of Trustees. Glover also pointed out TSU would be in a better financial position to handle the housing crisis had it been appropriately funded, as other Tennessee land-grant colleges were.
“To remove or dismantle TSU leadership at this point in time would not only hurt and destroy the legacy of TSU but will cause irreparable harm to our students and their families,” she told a special Senate committee in February. “It’s time to support TSU and not destroy TSU.”
Under Glover’s tenure, TSU increased grant funding to over $100 million this year, more than doubled endowments and the university was recognized as a “high reasearch” school with plans in place to increase it’s classification again.
The university also established the a new accelerated medical program with Meharry Medical College and started the first student-operated physical therapy and occupational therapy clinic, according to TSU.
In sports, TSU is in the process of becoming the first Historically Black College and University to field a collegiate hockey team.
Tennessee House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, said Glover’s work brought TSU a national spotlight.
“President Glover has worked tirelessly for Tennessee State University for the past decade and has done a fantastic job,” Camper said in a statement. “She has navigated some difficult times at the University as well, always developing solutions with dignity and class. … I wish her luck in her well-deserved retirement, although I’m sure Dr. Glover will continue to be busy and will continue to advocate for TSU and all of the other causes that she has fought for so passionately.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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