ATLANTA
Morehouse College President Dr. Walter E. Massey announced on Thursday his plans to retire at the end of the 2006-07 academic year. He announced his decision during the annual Opening Convocation at the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel on the college campus.
Massey said he had been contemplating and conferring with the Board of Trustees about leaving for the past two years. He said he is leaving the university in good shape and is retiring now that key leadership positions have been filed, including a new provost and chief financial officer.
A 1958 graduate of Morehouse, Massey became the ninth president of the institution in 1995. Among his accomplishments is competition last June of the college’s largest capital campaign, the Campaign for A New Century, which raised $120 million, including $38 million for student scholarships. The school recently built a 74,000-square-foot Leadership Center facility.
“Despite what some magazines say – we still are the number-one College in the nation for educating African American men,” Massey said in reference to the college’s tumble from the top spot in Black Enterprise’s ranking of colleges. He said the magazine’s emphasis on graduation rates was flawed.
Before taking the helm at Morehouse, Massey was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of California, the second most senior position in the UC system. In addition to overseeing the development of academic and research planning and policy, Massey also was responsible for the three national laboratories the system manages for the U.S. Department of energy.
