SC State ousted its president Tuesday. Here’s what faculty and alumni are saying
After a contentious few months, South Carolina State has parted ways with James Clark as the university’s president.
Since Clark took over in 2016, he opened new academic programs, forged partnerships and enjoyed support from lawmakers. However, the university’s inability to reverse decreasing enrollment and increase fundraising ultimately cost him his job, alumni and faculty told The State.
“In an effort to advance the university from an alumni association perspective, we like results. We like to see that the university is always advancing,” said John Funny, the president of the S.C. State National Alumni Association. “I appreciate the board of trustees making a decision to make certain that the university advanced in the future.”
Tuesday, S.C. State’s board of trustees removed Clark by a 10-3 vote and named Alexander Conyers, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, S.C. State alumnus and vice president at S.C. State, as the school’s acting president.
“We’re just pleased that the university decided to go in a new direction and we’re also excited about Col. Conyers taking over as acting president,” said David Staten, president of S.C. State’s faculty senate.
Through an attorney, Clark said “overzealous board interference” ended his successful presidency, The State reported previously.
Enrollment had been declining at S.C. State, and as recently as spring 2021, the total enrollment of students was 1,960, which is 501 fewer than the budgeted 2,461, according to documents presented at a previous board of trustees meeting. In fall 2011, S.C. State had an enrollment of 4,362 students, according to the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.
“While transition is never easy, the only constant we have in this life is change. Mr. Clark served at a pivotal time in my alma (mater’s) history and we thank him for his service,” S.C. State alumnus Hamilton Grant tweeted after news of Clark’s ouster broke. “I congratulate new Interim President Alex Conyers and am excited about this next chapter at SC State.”
Not everyone is happy to see a change in leadership. Barbara Adams, an accounting professor at S.C. State, said the university should have kept Clark. It is unwise to fire a president a month before classes begin and it is unreasonable to expect such profound structural changes to come at a university in a relatively short period of time, Adams said.
“Things don’t happen overnight,” Adams said of changes expected of Clark. “There are a lot of reasons enrollment is down and its not necessarily attributable to him.”
Staten disagrees, saying enrollment had been decreasing before Clark took over, but Clark had no plan to fix it.
“We felt like the faculty gave President Clark an ample amount of time to right the ship,” Staten said. “Some of the issues were definitely the fact that enrollment has plummeted under his leadership. Even though it had been declining before him, but enrollment really took a sharp turn for the worse under him, and there was no plan to remedy that.”
The change in leadership is an opportunity for S.C. State to improve transparency, give faculty and staff more say in how the university is run and tout the university’s strong programs such as speech pathology, nuclear engineering, Reserve Officer Training Corps and biological sciences, Staten said.
“I think people should be excited that S.C. State has an opportunity to move forward in a new direction,” Staten said. “S.C. State is still a premiere institution.”