Editorial: Changing of the guard at Hampton University and beyond
Hampton University officials last month announced they had selected retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Darrell K. Williams to serve as the school’s 13th president. He will replace a legend, William R. Harvey, the university’s leader for 44 years and a man whose fingerprints are evident on nearly every corner of the historic campus.
The announcement of a new president of Hampton is significant, not only for the school and the university community, but for the city of Hampton, the region and the larger commonwealth. Hampton University holds a distinguished place on the higher education landscape in Virginia, so a change in leadership commands attention.
But it is also notable that the transition at Hampton will come as other area schools welcome new leaders or where recently appointed presidents are still becoming comfortable in new surroundings.
First, a little about Harvey, whose long and distinguished term at Hampton more than deserves a closer look. It has been pointed out that when he took the reins in 1978, the school was called Hampton University and President Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
He came to Virginia from Tuskegee Institute, where he served as an administrator, and arrived at a time when the future of Hampton was, if not imperiled, then certainly in question. He inherited an institution that ran an annual budget deficit, had a modest endowment of $29 million and was losing ground to its peer institutions.
As he marked 40 years as president, the turnaround was profound. He tightened the purse strings to return Hampton to fiscal solvency, increased efforts to drum up funds and, over time, vastly expanded the academic scope of the school. It added 92 new academic programs, including 12 new doctoral programs, and its endowment now exceeds $400 million.
Those are just a few numbers, but don’t do justice to how Harvey transformed Hampton into what he called, “one of the best modest-sized universities in the country. Black or white, north or south, east or west. Any objective analysis will show that.”
That includes the construction of 30 campus buildings and improvements to many others, the addition of a Severe Weather Research Center, and the Proton Therapy Institute, which has given cancer patients a less intrusive and less debilitating path to fight their disease.
Beyond that, however, is Hampton’s ever-expanding role in our region, which includes working with secondary school students in areas such as aviation, pharmacy and journalism, and Harvey’s willing partnership with community leaders to improve life across Hampton Roads.
To put it bluntly, Gen. Williams has big shoes to fill, though he sounds eager for the challenge and, as a Hampton graduate, knows the important role the school plays for its students, alumni and the larger community.
Still, to lose someone of Harvey’s experience and with his connections will be a blow. And his departure isn’t the only one at a Hampton Roads university: Christopher Newport University President Paul Trible announced last year that he would step down in August, leaving another sizable hole on the Peninsula.
Those come a year after Old Dominion University President John Broderick gave way to Brian Hemphill, who moved into the top post in July. A year earlier, Javaune Adams-Gaston began her term as president of Norfolk State University. William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe also began in 2019.
These are more than places where promising young people pursue the academic path of their choosing and where talented faculty conduct cutting-edge research. These are economic engines for the region and institutions whose partnership can help Hampton Roads communities tackle some of our thorniest public problems.
That’s why having capable, driven and visionary leaders in these posts is essential to the region as well as each institution, and why Hampton Roads should lend their support to ensure the ongoing changing of the guard in local academia succeeds as seamlessly as possible.
