Under fire: Alabama A&M University president forced to resign amid string of controversies

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 10, 2005 by Tracie Powell

NORMAL, ALA.

Like previous school presidents before him, Dr. John T. Gibson's tenure at Alabama A&M University has been marked by turmoil and scandal. Gibson weathered the storm longer than some, but last month trustees forced him to resign.

Problems, some apparently spurred by unhappy employees, others by Gibson himself, include missing money, mismanagement, lawsuits and ego trouble. But in the end, and despite some progress made under his administration, negative perception is what trustees say finally convinced them that it was Gibson's time to go.

Trustees and Gibson are currently negotiating his exit, but his departure may not come cheap. His contract with the university doesn't run out until 2007, terminating it early could cost the university upwards of $850,000.

Forcing Gibson to leave now could put the university in dire straights, alumni and employees complain, causing relations between the two parties to get even nastier than they already are.

Gibson didn't return several phone calls to his office for this story, but Black Issues talked with state officials, alumni, trustees and current employees in hopes of getting a glimmer into what went wrong.

To understand how the relationship between Gibson and Alabama A&M soured, one must start prior to Gibson's arrival.

KNOWING THE HISTORY

Dr. Richard "R.D." Morrison became president of Alabama A&M in 1962, and remained in that position for more than 20 years. After Morrison retired, there was a secession of presidents. Even the infamous conservative Republican Alan Keyes, who ran against U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in November, held the post for a while as an interim president.

When Gibson took the helm in 1996, poor morale plagued faculty and staff" and student enrollment had hit an all-time low. Controversies, financial and otherwise, had swallowed up the school's previous leaders. Gibson was brought aboard to provide stability.

In the nearly nine years he has been on campus, Gibson has overseen the renovation and repair of several buildings on campus and the construction of a new residence hall, stadium and soccer fields. A new wellness center is on the horizon as well. Under his leadership, faculty and staff saw their salaries increase significantly and student enrollment increase to 6,600.

The coup de grace--this year A&M was cited as one of America's Best Colleges by U.S. News and World Report magazine.

"This is the most prosperity we have ever seen," says Willie Lightford, an accountant in the school's library who has worked at the university for 20 years. "You can just look across campus and see all he's done. Now anybody would want to stick their chest out."

Lightford, like others, is despondent because Gibson is leaving. She doesn't blame him for what's gone wrong at A&M, "he's but one person," she says. Lightford believes that Gibson's forced departure has more to do with politics; she faults trustees placed on the board by Republican Gov. Bob Riley. As governor, Riley is de facto chairman of A&M's board of trustees.

"Any negative perception we have is there because they created it," Lightford says. "But what they don't understand is that the damage that's being done is beyond just (Gibson). It's affecting the morale of the students as well as people in the community."

A&M's relationship with state leaders has been tense for years. Stories have circulated about how former A&M presidents had to grovel for funds from legislators. Their White counterparts, such as the University of Alabama, didn't have to do that. "After that kind of humiliation and injustice, it takes years to rebuild trust," wrote Huntsville Times columnist David Person.

"Ask the right people and they'll tell you that it stung when the University of Alabama in Huntsville was founded in A&M's back yard in 1961 ...," Person continues. "They'll remind you that A&M was already here--had been for nearly a century at that point--and would have been the logical place to begin training scientists and engineers. They'll maintain that all of the resources and funding funneled to UAH could have been invested in A&M."

It's likely that because of racism and segregation it didn't happen, especially since A&M retained its historically Black identity.

These days, according to Person, A&M and the University of Alabama-Huntsville seem to coexist peacefully, thanks perhaps to conscious efforts by Gibson, who worked to ease lingering tensions and partnered with UAH where possible.

But distrust persists as A&M supporters and others in the Black community continue to suspect that A&M's very existence might be in jeopardy, Person says. Fears that A&M might be forced to merge with a historically White institution ran especially high in the days when news headlines focused on the long-running desegregation lawsuit filed by A&M and Alabama State University to give the state's Black colleges and universities their fair share of state funding and resources.

In one of his columns, Person hints that Gov. Riley may have been behind Gibson's ouster.