The trend among Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) toward bringing in a new generation of leaders with strong business and finance credentials continued Thursday, when the sharply divided board of trustees of South Carolina State University (SCSU) named Thomas J. Elzey president of the troubled institution.
Elzey, executive vice president for finance, administration and operations at The Citadel, was chosen by SCSU trustees by a 6-5 vote, despite passionate appeals from student body leaders, faculty and community activists to give the job to Dr. Cynthia Warrick, the interim president. She has built a constituency at the institution since being hired nine months ago, a time during which the university board faced intense criticism as a fractured organization.
Elzey, who joined The Citadel in 2011 as the first Black executive at the prestigious, historically White institution, is a finance site administrator with a deep portfolio of experience in the public and private sector. In addition to serving in Washington with the federal government’s Resolution Trust Corporation, he has served in senior finance positions at Drexel and Howard universities.
Elzey has also served as chief executive of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and budget director in the Office of Budget and Management for the City of Chicago.
“We thought he could bring the skills set we need at this particular time,” said SCSU Board Chairman Walter Tobin. “Our faculty was not pleased, students protested, and some alumni had questions,” Tobin said in a telephone interview late Thursday. Still, Tobin said, “we thought a man of this kind, of this ilk, was right for the university.”
The selection of Elzey comes just months after two other high profile institutions — Tennessee State University and Fisk University — turned to finance-savvy academicians to fill presidential vacancies. Both were deans of the respective business schools at the previous institutions before taking the new posts and had extensive experience engaging the business world on a level footing.
