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Morehouse Students to Have Say in Choosing Massey's Successor

Photo credit: Maroon Tiger "I must confess, that today, the occasion is bittersweet," Morehouse President Walter E. Massey said at the school's opening convocation Sept. 14.

By W. Hassan Marsh
Black College Wire

Students will have a say in who will succeed Walter E. Massey as president of Morehouse College, and names of candidates have already begun to surface.

According to Willie Davis, chairman of the Board of Trustees, any student may submit recommendations to the trustees’ search committee. Marcus Edwards, Student Government Association president, will be on the search committee. And student representatives to the Board of Trustees will have a vote in the final decision.

Massey announced to students his plans to retire at the end of the year in a tearful and retrospective speech at the school’s opening convocation on Sept. 14.

“I must confess that today, the occasion is bittersweet,” Massey said.

The initial announcement came just the day before at a midday meeting of the institution’s faculty and staff.

Massey's tenure was marked by corporate involvement on campus. Massey serves on a number of boards, including BP Oil and Bank of America, and was able to draw financial support to the college. This was evidenced best in the overwhelmingly successful capital campaign, in which the institution sought to raise the endowment to $105 million but reached more than $120 million.

Since Massey’s announcement, the campus has been buzzing about who will succeed him and what qualities Morehouse should seek in the next president.

“It gives us an opportunity to be very selective so that whatever we have learned from him, whatever he has left on the ground that someone will take it from where it is to be able to promote it for the future,” said Augustine Konneh, chairman of the history department.

“Hopefully, in many respects, he would look like Dr. Massey,” said Willis Sheftall, chairman of the economics department. “I think we need to wait until the search committee comes out with its statement of the attributes and the qualifications.”

Konneh threw out three names.

"I’m hearing Michael Lomax. I’m hearing Calvin Butts, I’m hearing Sheftall,” he said.

All three men have strong ties with the college, and have experience in leadership in higher education. Lomax, who heads the United Negro College Fund, was president of Dillard University. Lomax was the first Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse in the ‘60s. Butts is pastor of New York's Abyssinian Baptist Church and is a 1972 graduate of Morehouse.

Sheftall said he does not expect to assume any greater position. “I don’t see my role changing at all,” he said. “A professor of economics I intend to be.”

Sheftall will serve as a coordinator for the Board of Trustees’ search committee for a new president.

Just before assuming the presidency at Morehouse College, Massey was the senior provost for the University of California system. He arrived at Morehouse in 1995 planning only to stay 10 years. Two years ago, he said, he began discussing his retirement plans with the Board of Trustees.

Born in Hattiesburg, Miss., Massey graduated from Morehouse in 1958. He eventually went on to receive his Ph.D. in physics in 1966 from Washington University.

Massey served as an administrator at a number of scientific research institutions, including the Argonne National Research Laboratory, where he served as the vice president for research, and the National Science Foundation, where he was director. He has also served in a number of teaching and research positions at a number of universities.

The 69 year-old grandfather said he did not plan to pursue another full-time career.

Students were astonished and disappointed by Massey's announcement.

“My first reaction was that of surprise,” said psychology major Jonathan Hill, a junior from the District of Columbia. “He seems to be very much into the swing of things here at Morehouse.

“A lot of faces around here I don’t recognize,” he said. “A lot of people that were here when I was a freshman went to other endeavors and that’s kind of depressing at times.”

Augustus Wood, a senior history major, was disappointed. “It’s sad to see him go. He did the job he was given and he really had a connection with the student body here,” he said.

Members of the faculty echoed many of the students' responses.

Linda Zatlin, professor of English, said Massey had successfully raised money and appointed people who worked well with the faculty. “He brought in Sheftall as an extremely effective senior vice president for academic affairs, one with whom I could work and work efficiently," she said.

“I think that 10 years is a long time to serve as president,” she said. “It is a difficult job at best.”

W. Hassan Marsh, a student at Morehouse College, writes for the Maroon Tiger.

Posted Oct. 2, 2006