By Rosetta Miller-Perry
Dr. Glenda Glover’s career as president of Tennessee State University is coming to a premature close, and that’s not a good thing for either the university, or the community as a whole. Despite serving with distinction for over a decade, Dr. Glover was literally forced into retirement due to the ignorance, blatant disrespect and just plain racist attitudes she had to endure from people in state government, most notably anti black comptroller Jason Mumpower, whose open contempt and disregard for both Dr. Glover especially Black students and education as a whole was enormous and publicly displayed on many occasions. This man’s audit allegedly highlighted “management’s disregard of basic financial controls.”
But what this white man ignored in his audit, and what her few white critics also minimized, was the fact TSU has been shorted by as much as $544 million in recent decades. The state, by its own admission, repeatedly failed to appropriately allocate the school equitable land-grant funds. Send that money immediately to TSU!
Put another way, throughout her tenure TSU was repeatedly operating at a deficit before the year ever began. While white schools received money and did not operated without funds. Now no one, certainly not Dr. Glover, is arguing she was perfect and neither are the white men who attack her. She has acknowledged there were some errors, although no one knew just how successful her enrollment and recruitment campaign would become. You can argue in retrospect that quadrupling the scholarship budget without having the necessary amount of housing already in place to handle the boom in students was a mistake.
But if you’re going to highlight the mistakes, you’ve also got to credit the successes, and there were far more of those during her time at the helm. TSU grant funding increased more than $100 million this year alone. TSU has doubled their endowments and been recognized nationwide as a “high research” school. There are plans to increase the classification again. TSU is now planning to become the first HBCU with an on-campus hockey program, something that has brought them not just national but global attention, with articles in the Canadian and European press as well as every major American newspaper.
TSU has established an accelerated medical pro gram with Meharry Medical College. They’ve begun the first student-operated physical therapy and occupational therapy clinic.
When you look at both sides of the ledger, there have been far more positive developments than negative ones under Dr. Glover, yet we’ve seen this white racist Republican super-majority legislature propose vacating the schools’ Board of Trustees. The Tribune would love to see how UT, MTSU, ETSU, UT-Chatt. or any mainstream white institution would have operated having millions of dollars in funds that they were supposed to receive being withheld.
Presidents of TSU have always been spoken to in the demeaning and derogatory fashion. that Dr. Glover was repeatedly addressed or referenced by people in the state legislature, and by the condescending fashion Mumpower consistently referred to her when talking about TSU. Likewise Lt. Governor Randy McNally, who didn’t even have the courtesy to refer to her by name when he talked about the “need for a change in leadership” at TSU. Of course, he also didn’t bother to mention the funding shortage.
Fortunately, many in the academic and Black communities recognize her achievements and understand exactly what has happened here.. A highly qualified Black woman has been forced out of office by hostile, right-wing white KKK Republican types whose disdain for TSU is just part of their hatred for the state’s Black population as a whole, and their fear of Black voting power in Nashville. They’ve done everything they can to dismantle that through gerrymandering. They view TSU as an incubator for future Black leadership, and seek to keep it weakened and ineffective.
Yet Dr. Glover succeeded in putting the school on the front burner for the nation in terms of achievements. As Tennessee House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, said Monday “ President Glover has worked tirelessly for Tennessee State University for the past decade and done a fantastic job. 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 be a force to reckoned with as she will continue to advocate for TSU and all of the other causes that she has fought for so passionately.”
Dr. Glover’s input has also been sought by national entities who aren’t nearly as corrupt, bigoted or myopic as some in the local community. The U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor had her testify before a hearing on the importance and viability of HBCUs. “HBCUs remain at the frontline of educating students who need access to the transformative power of higher education despite discriminatory funding.,” Dr. Glover said. “We often ask the question, Why do we still need HBCUs? “The question should be, how do these colleges and universities have so little and produce so much.”
Another question should be why do HBCUs like TSU, and the people who run them, encounter such constant opposition and hostility when their mission is one of education and social improvement? The simple answer is there remain many whites in this society who have no desire to see Blacks educated, and who have no respect for those empowered in the community for that purpose.
To educate Randy McNally: The first HBCUs were founded in Pennsylvania and Ohio before the American Civil War (1861–65) with the purpose of providing Black youths—who were largely prevented, due to racial discrimination, from attending established colleges and universities—with a basic education and training to become teachers or tradesmen.
The Tennessee Tribune wants its readers to know that the racist white men in the state has forced every president of Tennessee State University out of office and not one white president under the racist Board of Regents has ever been forced out of office.
The Tribune wishes Dr. Glenda Glover the best in her future endeavors, and salute her for a decade of service and accomplishment, no matter what her white racist detractors claim.