Wilson proud of Norfolk State's "X" factor - Norfolk State University president Dr. Harrison B. Wilson

Black Issues in Higher Education, April 3, 1997 by Debra Adams

His grandfather on

his father's side was a

tenacious Virginia slave

Who fought in the Civil

War, first for the

Confederacy and the Union

Army. His grandmother on his mother's

side was educated at Wilberforce

University and taught in a one-room

schoolhouse in Kentucky.

Dr. Harrison B. Wilson says his

roots and his upbringing shaped him as

a fighter and proponent of education. In July, Wilson will

step down as president of Norfolk State University in Norfolk.

Virginia, after twenty-two years. He says he hopes his retirement

will give him more time to spend with his five grandchildren.

Despite two years remaining on his contract, the outgoing

sixty-eight-year-old president said his grandchildren -- who range

in age from one to eleven -- were growing up without really

knowing him. He doesn't want to miss out on spending time the

same way he did with his own six children. And the deaths of

some friends helped Wilson realize his own mortality.

"I said `My God, you can't take anything with you. I don't

know my children that well,'" he recalls. "It was just time

and age and children and family" that led to his retirement.

Wilson, who is paid $132,600 a year, begins a one-year paid

sabbatical July 1. He plans to work on his memoirs -- for which

the consummate storyteller is saving his best tales -- travel,

and write essays on urban problems, perhaps as a newspaper

columnist. He leaves a rich legacy at the sixty-two-year-old

historically Black institution.

Norfolk State University -- which was Norfolk State College

until 1979 -- has gone through many changes since Wilson took over

the reins. The annual budget has grown from $14 million to $86

million. Enrollment has increased from 6,700 to 8,100 students.

The number of faculty and staff has grown from 377 to 412, with a

current student-faculty ratio of 22-1. The university has also

added fourteen buildings and acquired fifty-one acres of land.

Despite Norfolk State's low graduation rate -- 22 percent of

students graduate in seven years, according to the state of Virginia

(a figure that university officials challenge) -- NSU has maintained

an open admissions policy to give low-achieving students from

poor public schools an opportunity to further their education. The

university has expanded the number of bachelor's degree programs

from thirty-three to forty-four, and its master's degree

programs have swelled from two to fifteen.

It began its first doctoral program in social

work two years ago. Graduates of its

Dozoretz National Institute for Minorities

in Applied Sciences program -- an intense,

nationally competitive honors program

-- are among a budding crop of young Black

scientists, engineers and chemists.

"Norfolk State University has been here

for more than sixty years educating and

positively impacting the quality of life for

tens of thousands of people. It didn't start

with me. There were two great leaders before

me," Wilson says. "As I leave, my hope and

expectation is to see my successor take up

the torch and keep this university on its

march towards continued success and overall

excellence."

Pride and Progress

When Wilson was growing up as one of

a few Blacks in a small upstate New York

town, he wanted to become whatever he saw

on television: a cowboy, a truck driver, a

policeman. But his relationship with John T.

Williams -- who had been a mentor to Wilson

at Kentucky State before becoming president

of Maryland State College, now known as the

University of Maryland-Eastern

Shore -- shaped his desire to become a college

president.

"When [Williams] became a president, I

said, `That's what I want to be,'" says Wilson,

adding that Williams's accomplishment gave

him the confidence to pursue similar interests.

"I said, `Shoot, I see these guys becoming

presidents, I know I can be a president.'"

Wilson's solid work ethic began early in

his life. His first job was shining shoes

as a seven-year-old boy in Amsterdam, New

York. A conversation with his mother that

same year, he said, gave him the first sense of

his identity.

"I came home one day and asked my

mother, `What am I?'" recalls Wilson. "She sat

me down and told me about my grandfather....

That gave me a certain amount of pride [that I

would carry for] the rest of my life." That

pride took on a special meaning when family

members told him that he was just like his

grandfather.

In 1975, Wilson, who has a doctorate in

health sciences, applied for the presidency at

troth Norfolk State and Kentucky State, his

alma mater. He was a finalist for both jobs,

but Norfolk State made the first offer.

Previously, he had been a basketball coach,

a professor and an administrator at Jackson

State, Tennessee State and Fisk universities.

"This as a bigger city -- more potential

for growth," Wilson says of Norfolk. "This

was the best deal in the long run."

At six-feet-four, 250 pounds, Wilson's

powerful physical presence is overshadowed

only by his commanding nature. His

charismatic yet folksy style and his

overflowing crop of good tales have charmed

friends and colleagues. Unlike other college

presidents, he has faced little public criticism