When Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover arrived at the president's office of Tennessee State University in 2013, recovering decades of missing state funding was not at the top of her agenda.
“I was more concerned about taking care of the students,” said the 1974 graduate of the Volunteer State’s only public HBCU. “I knew in the back of my mind that there was something about funding, because when I was there as a student, there was a conversation at that point about underfunding.”
But members of the TSU community persisted in their belief that she should take up the fight to recover the money the state owed the university — and eventually, the balance sheet made the gap impossible to ignore.
“I kept seeing the transfer of funds from the operating account to other accounts, and as a [certified public accountant], I had questions,” she said. She quickly met with TSU's state legislative representative, Harold Love, Jr. (D), who took up the fight at the state house.
What began as a financial inquiry became a years-long fight over state responsibility and the promise of equitable public investment.
In her new book, How Dare You: An HBCU President's Fight for Half a Billion Dollars Owed — and the State's Actions to Avoid Payment, Glover recounts that fight and the resistance she says accompanied her efforts to hold state officials accountable.
The book, she said, is not simply an account of a past administration's fight. It is an opportunity to ensure that the underlying issue receives the attention it deserves and that other institutions do not have to spend years fighting for resources they should have received in the first place.
