DELAWARE STATE UNIVERSITY
Dover, Delaware
Delaware State University (DSU) undertook a comprehensive effort to reimagine its university around ideals embedded in its strategic plan entitled PRIDE 2020. In doing so, the board of trustees and the president initiated efforts to increase retention rates to the national average (80%) and to change benchmark standards for graduation rates from six to four years.
To accomplish these goals, DSU developed a programme of individual development plans (IDPs) to personalize the progression of each student at DSU. An easy-to-use, flexible, computer-based tool generated a comprehensive composite of each student’s profile data and performance. This tool provided advisors timely data to track individualized plans for student success, and DSU was able to create reports showing retention and graduation rates by college and programme.
The University College was created to support first-year students and simultaneously create a climate for success throughout their time at DSU. Each student has access to at least two IDP sessions with advisors/counselors, who focus on supporting students’ individual goals, which is critical to first-year success.
Through these personalized, strategic efforts, DSU has already shown indicators of stronger student engagement, a proven factor in improving retention. DSU data has shown an increased fall-to-spring retention by 6 percentage points. Additionally, advisors and students report greater satisfaction due to new access to tools for tracking performance and regular check-ins for student engagement.
‘Our students are first-generation, most of them low-income. Some, but not a lot, may have academic challenges in their background. […] They’re waiting for someone to say they’re not smart, they’re waiting for someone to confirm these insecurities. But when you have someone that says, “You can do it”, that’s powerful’.
— President Harry L. Williams
HARRY L. WILLIAMS
President of Delaware State University
Years of Service: 2010–2017
Harry L. Williams has a BS in Communication Broadcasting and an MA in Educational Media, both from Appalachian State University, as well as an EdD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from East Tennessee State University. He worked in admissions and did research at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, which led to several leadership posts at Appalachian State University. Williams served as the tenth president of DSU from 2010–17, fulfilling a career-long goal of becoming president of a historically black college or university (HBCU). He currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
His visionary goals, focused on student success, have led to record-breaking growth in student numbers. His “friend-raising” efforts have also attracted numerous grants and increased state capital funding and a myriad of public/private partnerships, including exchanges and relationships with universities outside the United States. In early 2017, HBCU Digest named Williams among the ‘Top 10 Influential HBCU Presidents’.1
How has your personal journey informed your motivations to do this work?
It’s been a strategic and deliberate journey because that was my goal, to be a college president. More specifically, it was my goal to be a college president at a historically black college and university (HCBU). That was my passion that drove me to this kind of work.
My background is education; I have an educational leadership degree. I worked for and attended and graduated from historically white institutions, so I never attended an HBCU, but it’s always been something at the back of my mind in terms of the focus and the mission. They have always been organizations that focus on providing opportunities for those who may not have opportunities in other places. They were created out of that concept. These institutions were founded because blacks didn’t have the legal right to go to schools with whites. The states had to do something to help ex-slaves get themselves out of their socioeconomic place. Education has always been that key to get you out.
I started working at my undergraduate university as an admissions counselor, where I needed a little knowledge about everything on campus, and that gave me a global perspective of the different disciplines and majors and different faculty members. I worked primarily recruiting minority students to attend this historically white institution. North Carolina was under a federal mandate, a federal consent decree: historically white institutions had to increase black enrollment by a certain percentage, and historically black institutions had to increase white enrollment by a certain percentage. If they didn’t, the schools could risk losing federal funds. That intrigued me so much that I got my doctorate and did my dissertation on it. I wanted to look at whether that increased enrollment of blacks going college. I needed to work at a historically black college to collect my data. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, which is in Greensboro, is the largest HBCU in America, and I got a job there as director of admissions. It gave me firsthand knowledge of the work and what was so important with it. I saw firsthand how that could change people’s lives. It was the moment that I said, ‘I want to be a college president’
As the director of admissions, I was sitting in the room at the Dean’s Council and we had the dean of Engineering, the dean of the Graduate School, the dean of Arts and Sciences, the dean of Technology, the dean of the Nursing School, the provost, and me. Everybody around the table had PhDs from prominent institutions and they were all black. All black. Everybody. And I said, ‘Wow’. I had always been in an environment where I was the only black person in a room of PhDs. Now I was in a room with black people with PhDs running a major institution. They could be at any other institution, but they were here. That gave me a sense of responsibility and I thought, these people made this decision because it’s going to help, in particular, to be blunt, to pull a race up. At that moment I said, ‘That’s what I want to do’. I wrote a note to myself. I made goals. I said, ‘I want to be president of an HBCU in ten years’. I was very specific. I knew what I needed to do in order to get that. So, in 2010, ten years later, I was the president at Delaware State.
What does innovation mean to you in the context of your work as an institutional leader?
When I think of innovation, I think of doing things that are not necessarily the same thing over and over. You’re looking at different ways of how you approach things, having an open spirit and trying a variety of things without knowing if it’s going to work. It’s having the flexibility to make adjustments along the way, and using the creativity around you with people who have incredible experiences and incredible intellect in terms of how they might see and address a problem to improve a situation.
Technology is also driving a lot because it changes so fast and our students adapt. How do we make sure we’re in line with those changes to support our students? I don’t see the traditional college structure changing. It’s a safe place where you can send your child at 18, where they can make a mistake, but that mistake is not going to be the detriment of their career. The role of the academic within the classroom, and more specifically within the discipline—you’re going to need that. You’re going to need that professor who’s going to bring to the table all of his or her knowledge to help mold those students and develop those students at those critical developmental stages. That is an important part of a person growing into an adult.
How did you experience the severity of external pressures on your institution?
One of the challenges that we have at HBCUs, specifically working with first-generation college students, is how to support those individuals while recognizing that you can’t put them in a certain box.
You have to take care of the day-to-day and you also have to think about sustainability. You have to think about the future and how long this is going to last. Part of that responsibility is that you have to do almost all those things simultaneously. You have to be able to balance what you can and can’t do.
You also have to be able to say, ‘I do this, right here, better than anybody, and since I do this better than anybody, this is going to be our key’. You can’t jump at every new thing that comes along, because that takes you away from the focus area.
If you decide to be status quo, you’re going to eventually die because status quo doesn’t survive. But if you identify something that you want to be really, really good at, the other things around you will be pulled up. It’s just like how winning is contagious. If you win, you like it, and then everybody wants to be a part.
How would you describe the leadership structure you created?
People value and respect and appreciate when you’re honest with them, and when you’re straightforward and not guessing. Part of my responsibility is to be honest and transparent and open so you know where I’m coming from.
My biggest thing is keeping people informed, speaking to the community, and keeping the community engaged with what we are doing. That’s simple when you have three or four major initiatives you’re pushing. One of the things that we have been focused on is student success. Everything that we do has got to be connected to that some way or another. My philosophy: If you commit, you commit. You have indicators of success along the way of that journey. When you get those indicators, that just reinforces that you’re doing what’s right.
When you are at a university with a lot of smart people, the worst thing to do is to put structure around them. You want smart people to have that freedom and flexibility to do things differently. As an administrator, my role is to make sure that if you come to me with an idea, I support that idea and will get the resources. I have to trust that you vetted it. I have to have the confidence in your ability to know what you need.
Some conflict is actually good for the organization, especially within the team. If you have a talented team, usually you have people pushing and pulling each other. As the leader, my job is to manage that process. I’ve got a lot of smart people sitting around my table. We’ve had people who haven’t been able to get with the transformation. As part of that, we’ve lost some people along the way because of being stuck in their own ways of doing things.
We’ve been very successful in supporting our research scientists here, mainly because they are the ones who drive innovation. Part of that drive is having that talent to feel unconstrained by administrative matters. For a real academic, in my mind, that is minutia to them. My job is to make sure that we have procedures and policies in place that will allow for creativity to go uninhibited, where you won’t have those challenges.
How did you frame your vision for this work? What was the story you told about why this was important?
When I became president, the first action I took was to create a vision for the institution. I was deliberate in creating that vision and making sure it was a shared vision within the community. I said I couldn’t do anything else until this vision had been articulated so we all understood where we were going. You cannot develop a strategic plan if you don’t have a vision.
The worst thing a leader can do is sit in their office and say, ‘Okay, this is the vision I have for you’. It’s got to be a community-engaged vision. This university was lacking clear focus, clear direction, so my job was to assemble a “blue ribbon task force” of major stakeholders of the university, people who believe in this institution. I had external people and internal. I had faculty, I had staff. Both of our senators are co-chairs, and we have one congressman, so we have three co-chairs of this blue ribbon commission. That gave it status. I did a listening tour around the state because we’re a state university. We had focus questions in community town halls, asking, ‘What do you want this university to look like?’.
We came up with five major core values that had already been at this institution but never written down. What do we believe as the core of our existence? Diversity, scholarship, integrity, community, and outreach. I tell all freshman when they come here, these are our values, this is what we believe in, and this is what we’re going to do. This is what you’re going to get from this institution.
The next step was to develop a strategic plan around that, which then becomes part of the community. I had 125 people involved in the strategic planning process. It took two years. We came up with clear goals, clear directions, so now we’ve got it. It’s called PRIDE 2020. Now everybody builds their college-specific plan around the university plan.
Our students are first-generation, most of them are low-income. Some, but not a lot, may have academic challenges in their background because they may have made some mistakes along the way. But they’ve got some skills, they’ve got some talent. Having a professor understand that—because they’re already coming in insecure, they’re waiting for someone to say they’re not smart, they’re waiting for someone to confirm these insecurities. But when you have someone that says, ‘You can do it’, that’s powerful.
Delaware State University Visual Case Study
Executive Leadership
President Williams clarified organizational priorities and created opportunities for staff and faculty to innovate. He eliminated barriers to success as identified by those working closest with students.
Spark
President Williams’ first priority upon joining the university was to create a clear vision for the institution. He knew the university needed to be focused in its approach to student success and respond to the growing environmental pressures.
Sense-Making
Through President Williams’ leadership, this vision was co-created with the community. He assembled a ‘blue-ribbon task force’ of key internal and external stakeholders who conducted listening sessions around the state, engaging over 300 people in the process. Within 90 days they had created a vision for the university.
New Vision
The task force defined the university’s new vision: to be the best historically black college in America and first choice of employers. They pursued this vision through five major core values: diversity, scholarship, integrity, community, and outreach.
Team/Mandate
The new vision informed the collaborative strategic planning, which took two years and involved over 300 stakeholders. This process resulted in the launch of PRIDE 2020 to improve student retention to 80% and shorten benchmark graduation rates from six to four years. Leadership focused on removing barriers so colleges and faculty could creatively focus on the university’s shared priorities.
Iteration
To sustain organizational changes, faculty and staff held monthly forums to highlight student successes and key performance indicators (KPIs). These meetings reinforced a shared focus and provided opportunity for feedback and critical insights.
Delaware State University University College
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
The University College supports first-year students and creates a climate for success throughout their time at DSU.
COACHING & MENTORING
Real-time data supports direct and intrusive advising.
DATA
1. Individual Development Plans (IDP) include real-time data on student performance.
2. The Data Transformation team, including a dedicated data scientist continually improve on models to inform the IDP.
3. University-level key performance indicators (KPIs) enable performance-based management based on real-time data.
Who They Serve
Most of Delaware State University students are first-generation, low-income students.
Providing Access
This HBCU’s admissions criteria for freshman students include a minimum 2.0 GPA and SAT score of 800.
Enabling Success
Individual Development Plans provide students, faculty, and advisors with real-time data, which enables intrusive advising and individualized student success planning. The University College provides intensive support for first-year students.
1 ’DSU President Harry Williams Honored by HBCU Digest’, Dover Post, 4 January 2017, http://www.doverpost.com/news/20170104/dsu-president-harry-williams-honored-by-hbcu-digest