A.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDWARD WATERS UNIVERSITY
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A.PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDWARD WATERS UNIVERSITY
"I had some sleepless nights trying to figure out how we would make it,” Faison recalls, leaning back in his office chair with the knowing smile of someone who has navigated far rougher waters since that moment. “But fortunately, we’ve never missed payroll.”
That near crisis would prove to be not the beginning of the end, but rather the catalyst for one of the most dramatic turnarounds in contemporary HBCU history. Seven years later, Edward Waters stands as a testament to what bold leadership, data-driven decision-making, and strategic risk-taking can accomplish at a small, private historically Black institution that many had written off as destined for mediocrity — or worse.
Now, the longest-serving HBCU president in Florida, Faison has led the institution through its transition from college to university status, launched nine new degree programs including the institution’s first-ever graduate degree programs, achieved SACSCOC decennial reaffirmation of accreditation with no recommendations, and posted six consecutive years of operating surpluses after a decade of successive operating deficits — all while pursuing his Ed.D. at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education.
On a humid Jacksonville morning, Faison bounds out of his office with characteristic energy, with Dr. Luz Randolph, his chief of staff, keeping pace beside him.
“Come on, let me show you what we’ve been building,” he says, already moving toward the door with the urgency of someone who has a thousand items on his to-do list but refuses to let any of them wait. The transformation is immediately visible. Where crumbling infrastructure once stood, there are now renovated buildings with fresh paint and modern amenities. The campus, enclosed by recently installed ornate wrought iron fencing, feels both secure and welcoming, a delicate balance that reflects the university’s commitment to student safety without isolation from the surrounding community.
“Back in August 2018, I’ll never forget, it was move-in day,” Faison recounts as we walk past what was once an open, unprotected campus. “There were parents that had not seen the institution. Parents got out of the car, looked to the left, looked to the right. Grandma, everybody’s there. Got back in the car and said, ‘No way. No way am I leaving my daughter or my son here.’”
As we drive through campus, Faison points out property after property that Edward Waters has purchased to create a more contiguous footprint.
“This entire parking lot when I arrived was not a parking lot,” he explains.
“There were three houses that belonged to private citizens. So, we’ve been able to leverage our additional resources to go in and purchase property. We’ve been able to purchase a little over a million dollars in properties to create a more contiguous campus. Because had we not done that, we really couldn’t have done a fence because you couldn’t distinguish where it started.”
The context matters, he explains. Edward Waters sits in the 32209 zip code, “the most impoverished, crime-impacted, health-afflicted portion of the city,” and the surrounding neighborhood is a food desert. That’s why Faison was “very bullish” about a $3.25 million renovation of the dining facilities.
“I can’t have students living in a food desert, and they can’t go to a facility that has modernity and has the kinds of offerings that students need,” he says. “In many respects, it’s a competitive arms race. If I don’t have the accoutrements to attract and retain students, I’m going to be losing.”
His philosophy is straightforward: “I’ve always said, students want to know where am I going to live? Where am I going to eat? Where am I going to play? I wish they would say, where am I going to learn? But it really is, where am I going to live and where am I going to play?”
Inside the football locker room, the contrast with the past is stark. Modern lockers line the walls, each emblazoned with the Edward Waters tiger logo. The weight room features state-of-the-art equipment.
“When I talk about athletics being the front porch of our institution, this is what I mean,” Faison explains. “Young people see this, and they say, ‘Wow, they’re invested in us.’ And that investment translates into pride, into commitment, into excellence.”
We stop at what was once an abandoned building on campus — shuttered for decades — now transformed into a vibrant student activity center with meeting spaces, conference rooms, and areas for student organizations. It’s emblematic of Faison’s approach to seeing potential where others see decay.
“I always say that the presidency in 2025 requires you to have multiple tools in the toolbox,” Faison reflects. “You cannot be a one-trick pony and be able to function well for these institutions in these roles.”
The numbers tell a compelling story: enrollment reaching 1,215 students this fall — the highest in over two decades — representing a 30% increase since 2019; an endowment that has grown from $1.8 million to nearly $7 million ($6.98 million); and state funding that has jumped from $2.9 million to last year’s record $12.4 million. But statistics alone cannot capture the cultural and institutional transformation that has occurred on this campus along Kings Road in Jacksonville’s New Town neighborhood.
A legacy of excellence
PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDWARD WATERS UNIVERSITY
Tomeche Lowe, class of 1999 and former homecoming queen, now serves as an executive with Bank of America and spearheaded a clothes closet program for students who need professional attire for interviews, a tangible example of alumni investment in current students’ success.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants,” Faison often says, acknowledging the alumni who paved the way while working to ensure current students will become the giants upon whose shoulders future generations will stand.
Faison’s journey to Edward Waters actually began a decade before his presidency. In 2008, he spent a year at the institution in another role.
“My wife and I had been blessed to come to Edward Waters back in 2008,” he recalls. “We were only here for right at a year.” When the school’s provost, Dr. Donna Oliver, became president at Mississippi Valley State University in 2009, she recruited Faison to follow her. “But my wife and I said, if we ever had the opportunity to come back to Edward Waters, we would. Had no idea that 10 years later I’d have an opportunity to become president.”
The decision to return wasn’t easy. At the time, Faison was excelling as general counsel and vice president of external relations at Tuskegee University.
“A lot of folks were like, ‘Man, you’re at Tuskegee, you’re going to be a president one day. Don’t take that one. Just wait. There’s a lot of issues there. They’ve got financial problems. The reputation is this, that.’” But Faison saw something others didn’t.
“I felt this was a diamond in the rough. And I just really felt that this is where God was calling us to.” The college presidency wasn’t always Faison’s goal. A proud graduate of Albany State University and the University of Georgia School of Law, Faison started his career as a lawyer.
The turning point came when he wrote a letter to his former president at Albany State, Dr. Portia Holmes Shields, criticizing how the university engaged with its presidential scholars. Dr. Shields’ response changed his life: “She set me straight real, real fast. She said, ‘You think you know so much young man. Albany State has given you so very much. You came to ASU, as a presidential scholar, don’t have any debt. Why don’t you come off your high horse? Why don’t you go and give something back to these places that have given so much to you since you think you know how to do it?’”
Faison took her up on the challenge, applying for a position as director of alumni affairs at 27 years old at his alma mater. “It changed the trajectory of my life. It’s one thing to be a student at an HBCU, it’s another thing to come back as a staff person or administrator,” he says. “I think you really get a different perspective. So, I was bit by the bug at that point.”
Still, mentors had to push him toward the presidency. When the Edward Waters offer came, it took three weeks of prayer and family discussions before he accepted. “Once I got that conviction, we were all in.”
Standing on shoulders
Faison’s presidency was formally launched during his faculty-staff institute address in August 2018. He invited Bishop Marvin C. Zanders II, then pastoring at St. Paul AME Church in Jacksonville, to set the tone at a gathering of the college’s faculty and staff later during that first academic year.
“Bishop gave an analogy that I thought was just so apropos,” Faison remembers. “He said, ‘This new president is supposed to be able to see further and see things that the others couldn’t, but it’s only because he’s standing on their shoulders, so he’s supposed to be able to see further, dream bigger.’”
The analogy resonated deeply with faculty and staff who had weathered years of instability. Edward Waters had stumbled through a decade of consecutive operating deficits, stagnant enrollment hovering around 850 students, and lingering concerns about an accreditation challenge from 2004-2005 that, while never resulting in loss of accreditation, had tarnished the institution’s reputation.
“When folks hear Edward Waters, if they’re higher ed people, a lot of times they harken back to the accreditation challenge,” Faison explains. “And I still get questioned, ‘Y’all are accredited?’ We never lost our accreditation. But once you get that narrative out there, sometimes it can really be difficult to overcome.”
Three years later, Zanders ascended to the bishopric and later became chair of Edward Waters’ board in 2024, completing a circle of leadership that proved instrumental in the university’s transformation.
Faison didn’t rush into change. His first year was dedicated to what he calls “discovering, uncovering, and recovering” everything there was to know about the institution. He held stakeholder meetings with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the board throughout the entire first year.
“I don’t believe that you should come in and make all of these adjustments and changes, and you don’t even know what you’re really looking at,” he says.
What emerged was “Eminence 2025,” a strategic plan embodied by four progressive pillars: enhancing the academic profile, creating financial viability, fostering a genuine student-centered culture, and engendering a culture of institutional philanthropic support.
The plan required tough decisions — the kind that often derail presidencies at historically Black institutions where emotion and tradition can sometimes override data and pragmatism. Faison knew he needed outside validation. He engaged EAB, a company that helps higher education institutions use data to make decisions.
“I knew well enough that if we didn’t engage a third-party kind of objective entity that would give us data so that we could make some data-informed decisions, that I might be setting myself up for some hardship,” he remembers.
The data was unforgiving. Despite the institution’s affinity for programs in the humanities — Faison himself was an English major — the data in some cases revealed programs that were woefully underperforming and in other instances numbers showed students weren’t majoring in some of the school’s long cherished programs. For example, the education program was slated for immediate decertification by the state for consecutive years of prior poor performance and the music degree program had produced only eight graduates in five years while employing three or four full-time faculty members.
“There are people that were really angry about the fact that we made a decision to shut down the education and music degree programs,” Faison acknowledges. “I felt their pain. My mother is a former K-12 teacher, principal, and superintendent so I come from a family of educators. It was amongst the hardest calls I’ve had to make as president. But our board was supportive because we used the data to inform and drive our decisions.”
The decision to close certain programs while launching new ones in high-growth areas like forensic science, accounting, cybersecurity, sports management, public health and a pipeline nursing program in collaboration with the University of Florida’s College of Nursing was controversial but prescient. Jacksonville University, a local, more affluent predominantly white institution, recently announced the closure of multiple academic programs for the exact same reasons — six years after Edward Waters made the same difficult call.
The challenge of change
The most significant obstacle wasn’t external skepticism; it was internal resistance. “I think the most significant challenge has been getting our stakeholders to first believe that we could be more than what we have been,” Faison admits. “And it really starts at home.”
He describes encountering what he calls a reflexive defeatism.
“We shouldn’t be comfortable when we see things — we see processes broken. When we see financial struggles, we don’t pay bills on time. Or when our students aren’t achieving at the level that we want them to. And you hear this almost reflexive response: ‘Well, that’s just Edward Waters,’” he quips.
Changing that mindset became central to the transformation. “I think the biggest challenge has been to change how we felt about who we were. And then once you’re able to do that, then you start teaching people how to treat you.” Board support proved crucial.
“I think it’s been so key that I’ve had a board that stayed the course with me because there have been rocky times,” he says. “As we got into year two and three, we started to have to make some pretty draconian changes that affected people. And one of the things I’ve learned as a leader is that you’re going to have to make hard decisions that impact people that you actually care about, but you can’t be swayed by your emotion. You’ve got to do what you feel is in the best interest of the institution.”
By year four, the transformation enabled confident external engagement.
“When I came back four years later with confidence — ‘Listen, I know my finances. I can show you. We’ve had six consecutive years with a multimillion-dollar surplus, unmodified audit opinions, no findings. Enrollment is up. Our campus infrastructure — we’re growing’ — so now I can speak with some confidence.”
Still, the transformation hasn’t been without growing pains, which is why one of the university’s most prominent slogans — “Pardon Our Progress” — resonates so powerfully across campus.
“If you asked me four years ago if I would send my children here, I probably would have told you no,” says Mr. Edward Waters University, Donovan Gonsal. “But over my four years of seeing how much progress has been done and seeing how much more attraction the school has had, I would recommend Edward Waters to anyone.”
The slogan captures both the reality of an institution in the midst of major renovation and expansion. The university has operated waiting lists for residence halls for four consecutive years. A $30 million project for a new living, learning, and community convention center to include a 425-bed residence facility — the first new student housing since 1982 — is now in the works, with the city of Jacksonville potentially becoming a multi-million-dollar financial partner in the effort.
“As much as we are proud of what we have accomplished, we can do better,” Faison says matter-of-factly. “We have not arrived. We’ve made progress. We’re proud of that, but we have so much left to do.”
The Value Proposition
One of the most counterintuitive moves Faison made was increasing tuition. At the same time, he raised admission standards by instituting minimum GPA and standardized test score requirements.
“Sound to me like you don’t want the enrollment to increase. You want the enrollment to decrease,” was the common reaction.
But Faison understood the psychology of value. “If I say that this is worth $99, people say, ‘all right, whatever.’ But I can put the same cup here and say, ‘that’s a $100 cup,’ and people say, ‘oh, I want this. I value this.’”
The gamble paid off spectacularly. Applications topped 11,000 this year, the highest in institutional history, and the university reached 1,215 students this fall — the highest overall student enrollment in over two decades.
The key to managing increased enrollment while maintaining quality was a summer bridge program that preserves Edward Waters’ access mission while upholding standards. Students who don’t meet minimum admission requirements can complete the program, and if they achieve at least a 2.5 GPA, they gain regular admission. About 88% of students who matriculate through the Charles H. Pearce Institute — named for the institution’s founder — earn regular admission — a stunning success rate.
Among those success stories is a young woman from rural Southwest Georgia whose mother had her as a high school teenager. Faison saw her story on television — a high school senior with over $2 million in scholarship offers who hadn’t decided where to go to school.
His wife, Tyciee, drove to Albany, Ga. to meet her. Faison found her mother on Facebook and made his pitch: “I know that she can go anywhere in the world that she wants to go. But I’m starting an Honors College at Edward Waters. And what I can assure you is, if you give your baby to us, we will help make her dreams a reality.”
The student came to Edward Waters, maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA as a biology major, became Miss Edward Waters University, pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and graduated as valedictorian. She’s now a third-year Ph.D. student at Brown University, accepted directly from her bachelor’s degree program.
“That’s the story of an Edward Waters graduate,” Faison says with pride. “And she’s not the only one.” The Honors College, now in its sixth cohort with an average GPA over 4.0, produces students who attend Ivy League institutions for graduate school. The most recent co-valedictorians are both at Johns Hopkins. Four Edward Waters students participated in the Mayo Clinic Scholars Program this past summer alongside scholars from Xavier University.
Athletics as the front porch
While academics form the foundation, Faison recognized that athletics could serve as both a revenue driver and the “proverbial front porch” of the institution. His approach is unconventional but effective.
“I have about 75 baseball players,” he explains. “We have a varsity team and a developmental varsity team. Most of those kids are payers.” Same with men’s and women’s basketball — 40 to 45 players split between varsity and developmental varsity teams.
The bigger strategic move was transitioning from NAIA to NCAA Division II and joining the SIAC conference, placing Edward Waters in the same competitive space as Morehouse, Tuskegee, Clark Atlanta, and Albany State — a move that became official when the school earned full NCAA membership in the summer of 2024 after a three-year transition process.
“This year, Edward Waters football will be on ESPN television five times nationally,” Faison announces. “Prior, we were never on television. You’re talking about millions of viewers just hearing, ‘Oh, Edward Waters. Well, where is that? Oh, that’s in Jacksonville.’”
The additions of women’s golf, women’s soccer, men’s volleyball, and men’s tennis have further diversified and expanded the student body. In support of this growth, the university has invested significantly in athletics and student wellness, completing its first-ever on-campus football stadium in 2021 and later adding a state-of-the-art fitness, wellness, and weight room facility, along with four new NCAA-regulation tennis courts in 2023.
Remarkably, about 26-27% of Edward Waters students are athletes, contributing to an unusual demographic achievement. The university maintains approximately a 60-40 male-to-female ratio, bucking national trends that show declining male enrollment at most institutions.
The social media president
Faison is unabashedly active on social media — Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn — “all day, every day.” Some see it as millennial excess. Faison sees it as necessity.
Dr. Genyne Boston, the university’s provost, first connected with Faison via LinkedIn. “I kept seeing all these posts about Edward Waters. And I was like, ‘Wow, let me see what’s going on there,’” she recalls.
Boston left Florida A&M University after a 27-year career to join Faison’s team.
“I wanted to be on a team that was winning,” she explains. “The work speaks for itself. I can’t argue with the progress the institution has made.”
The social media strategy extends beyond Faison’s personal accounts. The university’s digital presence, managed by Justin Walker — Faison’s first hire in July 2018 — has become a powerful recruitment and storytelling tool. Walker single-handedly manages everything visible on social media — flyers, videos, all content production for the entire institution.
When footage of Edward Waters’ Spring 2025 commencement — complete with graduates, parents, and family members singing and praising together — circulated online, it captured national attention and sparked conversations about the unique culture of HBCUs.
But Faison also recognizes the tension between transparency and responsibility. “When you speak, when you come into these roles, you’re no longer speaking as Zachary Faison. You’re the president of Edward Waters University,” he says. “There are some trade-offs. You can’t just say everything that comes to your mind, but at the same time, you don’t have to trade your convictions and who you are.” Dr. Anita Mandal, a biology professor who has taught at EWU for more than 20 years, gets emotional when she speaks about the transformation.
“I never want him to leave this place,” she says of Faison. “Students are more prepared now. They are competing with everybody. Our students are in medical school, graduate school, nursing school.”
Dr. Stephanie Campbell, who has served 15 years and is an associate provost for operations in academic affairs, watched her mother graduate from Edward Waters when she was six years old, sitting in the balcony of Centennial Hall. After 22 years as a parole officer, she returned to her alma mater. “The transformation for me has been unbelievable,” Campbell reflects. “We had to make hard decisions. The president wasn’t trapped in politics, but you have to be strong enough to stand by the decisions you make.”
Kimberly Faith Holland and Donovan Gonsal, this year’s Miss and Mr. Edward Waters University, embody what the institution has become. Holland, a member of Edward Waters Honors College and a senior business administration major from Baltimore, Maryland, came on a full presidential scholarship and plans to attend law school. Gonsal, a senior criminal justice major from Pasadena, California, was recruited for baseball but found his calling in student leadership. When Gonsal attended the Kings and Queens Conference in New Orleans, Edward Waters was nominated for five awards and won two. “By the end of the conference, people weren’t asking ‘What school?’ It was, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re the king from Edward Waters University,’” he explains.
The political and financial landscape
PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDWARD WATERS UNIVERSITY
“The DeSantis administration and the collective Florida state legislature has been absolutely phenomenal in their funding support for private HBCUs in Florida,” Faison states. “Privates often don’t get state dollars. And so, we’ve been very, very, very fortunate.”
State Senator Tracie Davis, soon to become minority leader in the Florida Senate, has been instrumental in this success. She emphasizes her unique role as one of the few legislators who truly understands HBCUs from personal experience.
After a mass shooting near campus in 2023, DeSantis provided $1 million for security with no questions asked. This year, the state contributed an additional $500,000 for security expansion.
From an operating deficit of $1.9 million when Faison arrived, the university has posted six consecutive years of operating surpluses. The endowment has more than tripled. Private giving has jumped from a four-year average of $336,000 to over $3 million this past year.
Perhaps most symbolically, Faison established the Mayor’s Masked Ball as a signature fundraising event. When he proposed creating Jacksonville’s own Mayor’s Masked Ball, some were skeptical.
Five years later, the Mayor’s Masked Ball has raised nearly $1.5 million, sells out annually, and now splits proceeds 50-50 between the United Negro College Fund and Edward Waters.
“I’m a little maladjusted,” Faison admits with a grin. “When people tell me what I can’t do, it really does something to me.”
Building research capacity and T.H.R.I.V.E.
One of the newest initiatives under Provost Boston’s leadership is the University Grants and Research Office (UGRO), launched last Spring — an extraordinary accomplishment for a small, private HBCU.
Currently, only 6% of Edward Waters faculty have active research agendas. Boston’s goal is to increase that to 30-35% within a few years. The inaugural Faculty Summer Institute for Research and Scholarship attracted participants from biology, mathematics, psychology, English, and history.
Complementing the research initiative is T.H.R.I.V.E. — a Targeted Holistic Retention and Inclusive Vision for achieving student Excellence. The program emerged from a task force that Faison convened post the 2024-25 Christmas holidays.
“One of the worst things that our president can have is time on his hands, time to ideate by himself,” Boston jokes. The task force has been meeting since January, developing a comprehensive retention model.
The T.H.R.I.V.E. initiative includes early alerts requiring faculty to report on student attendance by week three, a Passport to Success program for first-year students documenting curricular and co-curricular activities, a cohort model creating communities of learners, and a Phantom Student Initiative targeting commuter students not involved in traditional campus activities.
“The student energy is different,” notes Dr. Jame’l Hodges, vice president for student success and engagement. “This freshman class has been different than what I’ve seen since I’ve been here. They’re hanging together, they’re studying together.”
Dr. Erin Gilliam, associate provost and dean of graduate studies, is leveraging this comprehensive support culture for graduate programs that have experienced explosive growth. Applications increased 126% this year, and the university exceeded its goal of enrolling 100 graduate students. All four graduate programs — MBA, master’s in public administration, master’s in educational policy and advocacy, and master’s in cybersecurity — are offered online and can be completed in three semesters.
Prior to 2022, faculty had not received a single raise in 16 years. Under Faison’s administration, there have been two across-the-board raises with the most recent one coming this past fall.
The university has also established an EWU Scholarly Development Fund, providing over a quarter of a million dollars for faculty and staff to obtain terminal degrees in their academic or professional disciplines.
This investment aligns with the institution’s evolution from college to university status, which it achieved in 2021 after 155 years of operating exclusively first as a two-year school and later beginning in the late 1970s as a four-year college.
"Now the standard is raised,” Faison notes. “We’re being judged by different criteria. The standard has to be increased.”
None of this transformation would have been possible without board support.
Dr. Edward L. Wheeler, one of the university’s newest board trustees and former president of the Interdenominational Theological Center and Christian Theological Seminary, sees his role clearly: supporting a president doing work that transforms lives.
“This man takes kids like me — who have potential, no background, no money, and no name — and lets them see that potential and tells them, if you work, we’ll work with you, and we will help you rise as high as you want to go.” Early this year, the board unanimously voted to extend Faison’s contract for another seven years.
Building for the future
The university currently owns 45 acres with 26 developed acres and 19 vacant acres. Buildings average 62 years old, with administrative buildings averaging 93. The building housing the president’s office is 100 years old this year.
Over the past seven years, Faison has invested over $41 million in campus improvements — averaging $6.8 million annually. Active grants and funding sources total several million more, including $5 million from the state for campus improvements and National Park Service funding for the historic Centennial Hall built in 1916.
Faison’s vision for campus transformation draws on family history.
“My father’s a graduate of North Carolina A&T. And when he came, he said, ‘Zachary, when I came to A&T, A&T was the same way. The A&T that you see today is not the A&T that I saw in the early seventies. We had homes and houses scattered throughout campus as well.’ But it took someone with some visionary leadership to come in and say, ‘I see something that others don’t see.’ And over time, if you put that campus master plan together, you begin to do what we’ve done — purchased these properties. That’s how you see a metamorphosis happen. And so that’s the blueprint that we’re following.” What makes Faison’s pace even more remarkable is that he’s pursuing transformation while enrolled as a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University — adding another layer to an already punishing schedule.
“I just passed my comprehensive exam earlier this summer,” Faison says proudly. “And now I’m in this last year working to complete my capstone and set to graduate in May.”
The schedule is grueling: flying to Nashville every other weekend for three years, Friday through Sunday, while simultaneously managing Edward Waters.
“I have no idea what I was thinking about when I decided to do that because it has been quite a challenge,” he admits with a laugh. “I’ve gained about 50 pounds over the past three years trying to navigate a Vanderbilt doctoral program and running a university.”
Why put himself through it? “I wanted the opportunity to really become a true scholar practitioner,” Faison explains. “I vacillated — go get the Ph.D. And when I did my own research, I said, ‘Well, but I don’t plan to be a theorist. I’m a practitioner. I’m someone that’s in the field doing the work.’ So, the Ed.D. for me just made a whole lot more sense.” The doctoral work has proven invaluable. “It gave me language and the literature for what I was experiencing, what I was seeing, but I didn’t know how to name it. And so now I can name that.” The decision also models expectations for faculty and staff.
“To me, there’s always opportunity to sharpen yourself. I think it would be intellectually dishonest for me to say to a faculty or staff person, ‘Hey, I need you to go and get a terminal degree in your discipline’ — I’ve had that very forthright conversation — if I’m not willing to do the same,” he says. “So, if I’m going to say that, then I need to demonstrate what it is that I’m expecting others to emulate.”
Combining his legal training with his doctoral education creates a unique leadership profile. “You may have heard from my team that I’m very exacting when I’m asking questions. They sometimes feel like they’re on the witness stand. I’ve just been trained as a lawyer, so I’m going to ask a lot of questions because that’s how I learn,” he says. “That’s how I unpack what we’re doing. So, to be able to combine the legal training with now this opportunity at Vanderbilt, I think is certainly making me a better leader.”
Almost all of his direct reports say that he is fair, but tough.
“I don’t apologize about the fact that I eat, live, breathe Edward Waters University. I’ve always been like that. If I’m in, I’m with you,” he says. “You’re going to get everything I got. I think about this institution from the morning I wake up until I close my eyes.”
Faison credits much of his growth and resilience to a network of fellow HBCU presidents.
“One of the loneliest places that one can be is to be an HBCU president. And so, I have learned that if you can’t find some agency with your colleagues, sister presidents, brother presidents, it’s going to be a real hard road to hoe,” he says.
The presidents learn from each other shamelessly. “I think imitation is the greatest form of flattery. If I see something you’re doing, we’re like, ‘I see you. I’m going to do that too.’ And vice versa.” But the network requires vulnerability.
“You’ve got to also let ego go. There can be a lot of ego with leaders just in general. But I think if you come to the space with the right heart, knowing why you’re really doing this work, then I can pick up the phone and call someone and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know how to do X, Y, and Z. I’m struggling. Have you encountered this?’ And nine times out of ten, you’ve got a brother or sister president that’s gone through the same thing that can help you navigate it. But you got to get out of your own way, your ego.”
The vision forward
As Edward Waters enters its 160th year, Faison and his team are developing a new strategic plan for 2035. The university held its annual faculty-staff institute in July, launching a year-long process of stakeholder engagement to chart the next decade.
By the end of 2025, the university will have achieved 92% of the objectives set out in the Eminence 2025 strategic plan — with 100% either completed or in progress. The 8% gap includes items like increasing the average incoming freshman GPA to 3.0 (currently at 2.97).
“I’m not a B student, I’m an A student,” Faison tells his team. “So, by the time we get to December, we will be across that 92% threshold.”
If the past seven years have proven anything, it’s that Edward Waters University under Faison’s leadership has mastered the art of the audacious goal achieved through meticulous planning, data-driven decision-making, and unwavering commitment to student success.
“We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us,” Bishop Zanders told Faison during that faculty-staff institute in his first year. Seven years later, Edward Waters stands taller than it has in generations — not because it abandoned its mission or its values, but because it embraced both excellence and access, both tradition and transformation.
In an era when too many HBCUs struggle with enrollment, accreditation, and financial sustainability, Edward Waters University offers a blueprint for how bold presidential leadership, board support, faculty dedication, and student-centered culture can not only preserve a legacy institution but position it to thrive for generations to come.
The institution that nearly couldn’t make payroll in October 2018 now stands as Florida’s only HBCU competing at the NCAA Division II level, with graduate programs experiencing explosive growth, an Honors College sending students to Ivy League doctoral programs, enrollment reaching historic highs, and a president who signs every single diploma personally — maintaining that intimate connection even as the institution scales.
“When I see that name on that degree, I remember when that student came here, where they were, what their circumstances were. I cried with them. I’ve encouraged them. I’ve given them swift kicks in the butt when they needed it,” Faison says. “And now when I see that name on that degree and say, ‘You did it,’ and I’m able to sign that degree and then hand it to them — it just means more. It just means more.”
That commitment to personal connection, combined with data-driven decision-making and strategic risk-taking, has created something rare in higher education: an institution that has fundamentally transformed itself while remaining true to its core mission of providing access and opportunity to students who might not find it elsewhere.
The three miles of wrought iron fence that now surrounds the campus — installed after a near-tragedy when security turned away a deranged individual who went on to kill three people at a nearby Dollar General store — serves as both protection and symbol. Edward Waters is secure in its identity, clear in its mission, and confident in its trajectory. The fence keeps danger out while allowing excellence to flourish within.
That’s the Edward Waters story. That’s the Faison legacy in the making. And that’s why, when people ask about the transformation of this 159-year-old institution, the answer is simple: “Pardon Our Progress. The best is yet to come.”
