Dr. Harry Williams is known among peers for his focused, successful, low-key approach to tough challenges.
Today, his peers say the firepower and tenacity of the 53-year-old is being put to the test as he begins his new post earlier this week as a top national advocate for an endangered higher education asset: public historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Williams is the new president and chief executive officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), making him the fund’s third chief officer since its founding in 1987 and the first college president to hold the position. TMCF has raised more than $250 million to aid some 47 public historically Black colleges and universities.
For sure, Williams acknowledged in a recent interview, TMCF faces increasingly high hurdles in helping its 47 targeted institutions and their students. The list of challenges is long, beginning with nose-diving minority enrollment at HBCUs, fragile funding at most of the institutions and churning leadership. More than half of the TMCF targeted institutions have changed presidents in the nearly eight years Williams was head of Delaware State University.
In Washington, where TMCF is based, the changes in leadership at the White House, in the Department of Education and in the House and Senate have raised the stakes for higher education as strong bipartisan support for it has diminished after decades. HBCUs are also increasingly being challenged by a growing number of policy thinkers and makers who know little about HBCUs, their history or their role in education, adding a degree of extra frustration to those who are making efforts to sustain public support for this group of institutions.
“When I started as president [at Delaware State], it was all hands on deck,” William says, reflecting on the challenges facing higher education and Delaware State at the time. “That’s what we’re looking at now [at TMCF],” he says, asserting he understands as an immediate past president how things have changed. “There is a sense of urgency” for HBCUs, he says, adding he plans to “continue to move forward” with TMCF’s “strong advocacy” agenda that his predecessor, Johnny Taylor, established during his tenure as chief executive.
“We’ve got to look innovative and create ways to attract more students to our institutions,” says Williams. He says HBCUs are in a “transition phase.”
