Tougaloo College Alumni Coalition for Change seeks to remove current president

Joshua Williams, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
·3 min read
A sign welcoming drivers into Tougaloo College is seen in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 26, 2023.The Tougaloo College Alumni Coalition for Change has posted an online petition requesting the removal of the school’s current President, Carmen J. Walters, due to “repeated failures by the administration” concerning low enrollment, uninhabitable living conditions, and questionable fiscal practices.

The Tougaloo College Alumni Coalition for Change is seeking the removal of the school's President Carmen J. Walters with an online petition posted on the group's website.

As of Wednesday morning, 1,418 people have signed the petition, with the goal of collecting 1,500 signatures advocating for a change of leadership at the private 153-year-old historically black college located in Jackson.

According to the petition, the Coalition is seeking the leadership change, "After repeated failures by the administration that was installed in 2019, faculty, staff, and students have voiced concerns directly to the administration, Board of Trustees, and the Alumni Executive Board through e-mails, petitions, social media, and news outlets. There is discontentment among our ranks directly related to low student enrollment, a decrease in campus morale, horrid student living conditions, and questionable financial practices that have negatively impacted the college.

Carmen J. Walters
Carmen J. Walters

"We, the alumni of Tougaloo College, are drafting this communication to protest the recent state of our alma mater. This document is being submitted at a crucial time in the institution’s one-hundred-and-fifty-three-year history in advance of our fifth-year SACS review in 2025. In response to these revelations, a list of grievances is outlined by the undersigned alumni, students, and stakeholders of Tougaloo College," the petition states.

Several colleges and universities in Mississippi have had changes in leadership in the past year, including at Millsaps College in Jackson, where Rob Pearigan resigned to become the vice chancellor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Millsaps has named Keith Dunn, Ph.D., as the college's interim president.

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board has removed presidents at Alcorn State University, Southern Miss, Delta State and Jackson State University in recent months. The openings at Southern Miss and Delta State have been filled while listening sessions were recently begun at Jackson State for the replacement of Thomas Hudson whose position is being filled by interim President Elayne Hayes Anthony.

More: Jackson State president search committee members named

More: Alcorn State president stepping down. See who is replacing her

Messages seeking response from Tougaloo College officials and alumni petition organizers were not immediately successful.

Below is a list of demands the Tougaloo College Alumni Coalition for Change provides in its petition:

Alumni body at-large demands

  • Remove the Current Tougaloo College President and Executive Leadership Team- After the Spring 2023 Semester, end all contractual agreements with the current administration.

  • The Board of Trustees should respond in writing to the grievances outlined in this petition within ten business days.

  • The Board of Trustees should participate in a Town-Hall Meeting (time and date to be determined) convened by a professional mediator or neutral party with all Tougaloo College Alumni and members of the Board of Trustees.

  • The Board of Trustees shall hold an open meeting once a semester to address alum concerns and produce and make accessible to the alums an online publication each quarter providing highlights of each quarterly meeting. We want to be made aware of openings on the Board and have a way to make recommendations for those vacancies.

  • Conduct an Independent Audit of the College's spending since Fall of 2019.

  • Conduct an Independent Audit of enrollment, retention, and attrition from Fall 2014 to Spring 2023.

"Tougaloo College is a private, coeducational, historically black four-year liberal arts institution founded in 1869," according to the college's website. "Tougaloo has gained national respect for its high academic standards and level of social responsibility. Aside from its social commitment, Tougaloo College has traditionally been an oasis of academic excellence and a campus of engaged learners that have produced a congressman, state supreme court justices, state legislators, mayors, scientists, attorneys, physicians, chief executive officers, school superintendents, and higher education administrators."

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: The Tougaloo College Alumni Coalition for Change seeks new president