Moving on to new mountains: three college presidents step down

Ebony, August, 1997

A great college president teaches every class and every student, playing the keyboard of the campus like a great virtuoso, moving distant keys and distant strings by sympathetic vibrations."(*)

Three college presidents made in the virtuoso mold retired or resigned this year, leaving great holes in the educational world.

Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole moved on to new challenges after a phenomenally successful run at Spelman College, which became, during her tenure, perhaps the richest historically Black college and one of the most highly rated American colleges. Before accepting a teaching and research post at Emory University, she will take a one-year sabbatical to work on books and rest "on some Caribbean beach where I can sit and talk to my own soul."

In New Orleans, Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook retired from Dillard University after a pacesetting tenure of 22 years. The highly regarded political scientist retires to a new home in Atlanta, where he will escape "the tyranny of the telephone" and complete several planned books.

In Chicago, Dr. Dolores E. Cross, who transformed Chicago State University and earned the plaudits of corporate and educational leaders, resigned to accept a new position as president of the GE Fund, the philanthropic elm of the General Electric Co.

Dr. Cross and the other presidents said the decision to step down at this time was a particularly difficult one and that they are certain that the achievements of their administrations will be continued under their successors. Acting Surgeon General Audrey Manley succeeded Dr. Cole on July 1 and became the first Spelman graduate to head the 116-year-old institution. On the same day, Dr. Michael L. Lomax, the president if the National Faculty, succeeded Dr. Cook at Dillard. The resignation of Dr. Cross is effective October 1.

Dolores E. Cross set three goals when she accepted the presidency of predominantly Black Chicago State University in 1990.

"I wanted," she said "to improve our success rate our image and the teaching and learning environment. "

When she announced her resignation seven years later; there were new buildings all over the campus including striking buildings with African-oriented designs and more students were graduating and going on to bigger things.

"CSU," she said proudly "is now 11th in the nation in the number of African-Americans who go on to pursue the Ph.D. degree third in the nation in the number of African-Americans who received master's, and 16th in the number of students who received baccalaureate degrees."

A graduate of Seton Hall University, Hofstra University and the University of Michigan, Dr. Cross held senior level administration and academic appointments including professor and associate provost and associate vice president for academic affairs at the University of Minnesota before her appointment as president of Chicago State.

A marathon runner who competed in the Boston Chicago and New York marathons she also took a leadership role in issues of access for women and minorities.

Sharing the spotlight and honors of the Cross years were her children Jane and Thomas.

In a book, Politics, Morality and Higher Education, published in honor of the contributions of President Samuel DuBois Cook, one of his former students, political scientist Hanes Walton Jr., said, "Cook's Dillard presidency has set a new standard for not only another African-American college but like the [Benjamin E.] Mays' presidency, for other college leaders as well."

A native of Griffin, Gal, and a graduate of Morehouse College and Ohio State University, Dr. Cook taught at Southern University, Atlanta University, the University of Illinois and Duke University before accepting the presidency of Dillard.

Like Benjamin E. Mays, the legendary president of Morehouse College, Cook continued the tradition of great college presidents like Dillard's Albert W. Dent. He was, by all accounts, especially effective in challenging and motivating students, and he established new beachheads, organizing a National Center for Black-Jewish Relations and a Japanese Studies Program, which is the only program of its kind in any university in the south central United States and the only one at a historically Black college. Under his leadership, the endowment increased from $5 million to more than $40 million.

Sharing the spotlight and the honors of the Cook years were his wife, Sylvia Fields Cook, a graduate of Spelman College, and their two children, Karen Jarcelyn and Samuel DuBois Cook Jr.

When Bill Cosby heard that Johnnetta Betsch Cole was giving up her post at Spelman, he said, "I'm not happy. To me, it's as if Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Ella Fitzgerald had all died on the same day."

From all over the United States, and particularly from Black women who affectionately called Dr. Cole "Sister President," came words of praise for the outspoken anthropologist who made history and an ethos in her 10 years as president of the prestigious Atlanta school for women.