To recruit and prepare potential future leaders to serve at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Clark Atlanta University (CAU) has established the Executive Leadership Institute (ELI).
HBCUs have gained attention in recent months with the country’s racial reckoning and the pandemic’s outsize toll on minority, low-income students, many of whom enroll at HBCUs. But these institutions also face unique leadership challenges to their longevity that ELI aims to address.
The inaugural ELI cohort of about 20 candidates—or Legacy Fellows—will be announced this spring. Qualified industry leaders from higher education to Wall Street were invited to apply with an interest in running HBCUs. Starting in June and ending in December, the immersive leadership program will last six months, first as a virtual program and potentially in person later.
To CAU President Dr. George T. French Jr., the launch of ELI amid ongoing national crises makes this program all the more important.
“Because we are in a pandemic, we especially need to prepare leaders to run institutions in uncertain times,” said French. “At HBCUs, we have not had the continuity of leadership and the soft as well as hard skills among leaders that the pandemic requires.”
Before its launch, ELI surveyed 27 current and past HBCU presidents about what skills the Fellows should learn. Like French, most stressed interpersonal competencies, particularly for fundraising and board governance. ELI’s curriculum covers these areas as well as operations and alumni relations, among other practical subjects.
“Teaching Fellows those soft skills makes ELI especially poignant and powerful,” said French. “To migrate about 4,000 CAU students online in a few weeks during a pandemic, for example, you can’t walk in with an iron hand. You need to make students want to move online.”
