Dr. Norman Francis concluded a 47-year career as president of Xavier University in Louisiana on Tuesday—making him the longest serving HBCU president and second-longest tenured president of any U.S. institution. On his way out the door, the man who could be seen as a godfather of HBCUs reflected on the state of the institutions and the path ahead, which he said looks bleak in many ways.
The state of HBCUs “has changed, as you can imagine, measurably since I have been president of (Xavier) and it has been changing rapidly in the last decade,” said Francis in a recent interview.
And he foresees “another tough decade” ahead.
“It’s not to say that we have not had past decades that were tough, but this is going to be one that is going to challenge the leadership of the institutions in taking a hard look at their budgets and their programs to make sure they’ll be in concert with the ability to continue to offer a quality education,” he said.
