In a Sept. 9, 2014 briefing, Chancellor Donald Reaves reflected on his seven years at Winston-Salem State University.  We share those remarks here in four days of blog posts.

Day One:  Improving Performance, Setting Metrics 

As you may know, I have announced that I am stepping down as chancellor effective December 31 so I’d like to provide an overview, so to speak, of what we set out to do and what we got accomplished over the last seven-plus years.

Let me begin by acknowledging that I am leaving a lot of work for the next chancellor. That’s another way of saying that at a university the work is never done because the work at a university is about continuous improvement; it’s about always finding a way to make things better.

I started work in August 2007 and by the following April I had developed a set of goals and objectives that I outlined in my installation speech. It was my first major speech before a large audience of the faculty, students, staff and the community, and I wanted to make sure that I was clear about what it was that I intended to do. I thought that it was a pretty good speech, but I discovered later that most everyone in the audience left angry about something that I had said.

A friend of mine from the University Chicago told me that I said all of the right things, but that it was the wrong place to say them. He said that I should have said nice things that made people feel good. But that’s not me; that’s not my style. That day I told them about the things that were broken and what I planned to do about it, and in no uncertain terms let them know that if we didn’t improve performance that those who provide our support, our funding, have every reason to question why we needed to continue to exist. I said it that morning and I meant it, and that belief has served as a guiding principle throughout my tenure. Without improved performance, I am convinced WSSU and other similar colleges and universities will eventually become less and less relevant.

To get these things done, we developed a five-year strategic plan. The Plan, as we call it, has served as the guide for everything that we do. It set the priorities and the path to achieving our goals, and during the last five years when resources from the State have been reduced by almost $35 million, The Plan has guided our decisions about the allocation of those resources. Most importantly, it helped to merge my original goals with the mission of student success.

Recently I went back and read that speech, and I am delighted to report that every single thing that I said I was going to do has been done.

I said that we needed to improve (freshman) retention and our graduation rates. We have done that, increasing the retention rate which stood at about 65% to more than 80% in 2012, the 7^th highest in the UNC system, and moving the six-year graduation rate from about 35% to about 46%. Recently U.S. News and World Report reported that WSSU had the 5^th highest retention rate among the nation’s 105 HBCUs.   

That morning I said that we needed to graduate more students. I am happy to report that we have done that.  In 2007 we graduated 824 students. Last May almost 1,600 students received degrees.   

I also told the faculty that I expected improved performance from them. Shortly thereafter we raised the standards for tenure and promotion.

That morning I told the audience that we were going to need to control expenses and to prioritize our spending. I did not tell them that cutting costs would involve the abandonment of the quest to become an NCAA Division I athletic program because I knew that would not be a controversial decision with many. Since rejoining the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, the CIAA, our teams have won 16 conference championships and our football team has compiled a record of 46 and 6, losing only two conference games in four years. Most folks are happy again.

I then told the audience that in order to improve performance, we needed to admit students who were better prepared. So we raised the standards for admission three times, all in advance of the General Administration. The result is reflected in the higher retention and graduation rates noted above, and the dramatic increase in the number of graduates. In the past we would graduate, each year, about 17% of the student body. The past two years the percentage of the student body receiving degrees stood at 27%.

At the same time, we were careful that we did not cut off access to higher education. The legacy of the nation’s HBCUs is grounded in the notion of providing opportunity and access. Therefore, to ensure that less-prepared students who were seeking an education could gain access, we developed a dual admission program with Forsyth Technical Community College. 

Students in the program are dually admitted to both schools; they take classes at Forsyth Tech and can access the resources on our campus at the same time. Once they complete the work at Forsyth Tech, they can automatically move into programs at WSSU. The program is extremely popular, it’s cheaper, the students tend to be better prepared, and we are seeing the first group of those students on our campus this year.