By a vote of 14-3, the faculty senate at Mississippi Valley State University approved a vote of “no confidence” in the university’s president, Donna H. Oliver. The list of grievances cited by the faculty were:
1. Declining enrollments.
2. The faculty has not had a pay raise in five years.
3. There has been a lack of serious effort to raise outside funds.
4. Poor treatment of faculty members.
5. The university is not moving in a positive direction.
Dr. Oliver has been president of Mississippi Valley State University since January 2009. Previously, she was provost and vice president for academic affairs at Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. From 1998 to 2007, she was vice president for academic affairs at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Dr. Oliver is a graduate of Elon University. She holds a master’s degree from North Carolina A&T State University and a second master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The university is more than one person. What have other individuals including the faculty done to increase enrollment, raise money and move the university in the right direction?
Why does this sound like a broken HBCU record? Could the problem be simply that there is dwindling interest in HBCUs among black students themselves? With dwindling students come dwindling everything else beginning, of course, with resources without which no institution can do anything.