The view of Norfolk State University’s 120-acre campus, as seen
from the ceiling-to-floor window in the office of the president, is
deceptive. In the foreground, sit the neatly, manicured lawn and
sparkling aquamarine pool of the school’s red-brick presidential
residence. The scene reveals nothing to suggest this is an institution
struggling to recover from a multimillion-dollar fiscal deficit.
Dr. Marie Valentine McDemmond moved into this cozy fifth-floor
presidential office on July 1, 1997, becoming not only the first woman
to lead this sixty-three-year-old university, but the first to become
president of a public four-year university in the Commonwealth of
Virginia. Little did McDemmond know when she began her new job that the
verdant vista from her office window would become a thorny symbol of
the perception problems she, and the university, must now overcome.
Details about Norfolk State’s financial woes began to make
headlines locally and nationally within months of McDemmond’s arrival.
She was prompt to implement a cost-cutting strategy that included the
unpopular decisions of laying off 116 employees and increasing student
fees by 27 percent. Then, this past July, McDemmond — who perhaps
ironically, has built a career as a prudent higher education fiscal
manager — found herself in the awkward position of having to explain
to Virginians why the house she lives in was renovated to the tune of
more than $200,000 at a time when the university was facing a $4
million deficit.
In her own defense, McDemmond maintains that the university’s
fiscal difficulties were incurred prior to her taking office. Her
predecessor, Dr. Harrison B. Wilson, is a well-heeled,
politically-connected, mammoth of a man whose twenty-two-year imprint
is found in facilities, programs, and systems throughout the NSU
campus. He has rebuked McDemmond’s assaults on his legacy and continues
to linger at the university as a president emeritus with an on-campus
office and a three-course teaching load in the School of Education.
Despite the obvious tensions that exist in such a charged
environment, McDemmond appears remarkably confident and optimistic
about the future of NSU as well as in her own ability to lead the
university out of this crisis. A graduate of Xavier University of
Louisiana, and the University of New Orleans, where she earned her
bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively, she completed her
doctorate in higher education administration and finance from the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her thirty-year career has
included experiences as a professor of education, and as a senior
administrator at Emory University, the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, and Atlanta University, among others. Earlier
this year she was named to a three-year term as a Senior Scholar by the
National Association for Women in Education (NAWE).
Black Issues Executive Editor Cheryl D. Fields spoke to McDemmond
last month about the NSU deficit and house controversy, her long-range
plans for the university, and her views on the particular challenges
African American women face as they move into presidential positions at
the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. The
following is excerpted from that conversation:
Were you aware of Norfolk State University’s financial situation before you came here? And if not, why?
