Service is in Her Blood
The daughter of noted blood bank pioneer Dr. Charles Drew, Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis is no stranger to the spotlight. Yet, it is from her own political and educational pursuits that she has become a well-known figure in the Washington, D.C., area. After working as a research scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, Jarvis shifted her attention to serving the local community. In 1979, she was elected to the City Council of the District of Columbia, where she remained for 21 years. She served as chairwoman of the council and the committee on economic development.
In 1996, Jarvis was named president of Southeastern University, the first woman to hold the position. As president of the private, nonprofit university, she has strengthened its academic curriculum, expanded certificate offerings to those in the science and technology fields, increased enrollment, and developed numerous partnerships with local businesses and organizations. Recently, Jarvis sat down with Black Issues to discuss the university’s future and her role as its leader.
BI: What drew you to higher education, given your background in other areas, especially politics?
CDJ: I came into higher education because my 20 years as the chair of the Committee on Economic Development for the Council of the District of Columbia convinced me that women of color and other people of color were not really competing well for major economic development projects, which means that a focus on entrepreneurship was something that we were not teaching. And it seemed to me that the higher education route to getting students involved in entrepreneurship was exactly the place where I needed to be.
BI: What have you found to be the major differences and similarities between the two entities, politics and higher education?
CDJ: Well, there’s a great deal of politics in higher education. First of all, there is a great deal of competition between universities. There is a competition for students; there’s a competition for innovative programs; there’s a competition for resources; and now, particularly, there’s a competition between state-funded schools and private institutions. State-funded schools depended, in the past, on the largesse of the state for support, and now, in times of severe budget crisis at the state level, the universities have to go out and mine their alumni donor base. They’re going to the same foundations; they are going to the same corporations that small nonprofit universities are going to. So it’s creating tremendous competition at a time when foundation giving, individual giving and corporate giving is down. 
BI: How do you compete in that environment? How do you position Southeastern University in that environment?
CDJ: Well, I think one of the things that all higher education associations are now talking about is access to higher education throughout the country. When I was at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, access for people of color to higher education was a major topic. And the solution to the problem of access has a great deal to do with funding. So there was a great deal of discussion about expanding the Pell Grant; there was a great deal of conversation about individual university scholarship programs, and innovation within the universities themselves. Many private colleges are beginning to think about what kinds of efforts they can undertake in order to attract minority students, especially now in light of the Michigan decision. …
One of the things that we are looking at in terms of Southeastern’s support is the same sort of appropriation in the Higher Education Act that is afforded to HBCUs, tribal colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions. Around the country, Southeastern has identified about 10 or 12 other institutions that are like us: nonprofit, private institutions that serve majority African American populations. We are not one of the historically Black colleges and universities, and yet we serve the same student body. I’ve been trying to persuade members of Congress … under Title IIIB, which is the HBCU appropriation … to establish a separate appropriation for other private, nonprofits that are serving an African American community. What we don’t want is to actually compete with HBCUs for the appropriations, which they have been successful in getting increased in this budget period of 2005.
