Walter M. Kimbrough isn’t shy about giving out his cellphone number. A dozen or more times a day, students text the president of Philander Smith College. They e-mail him and drop by his office. When student-government leaders need a ride to a conference in New Orleans, 445 miles away, he drives the rented van.
That level of access is at the heart of Mr. Kimbrough’s recruiting pitch for the small, private institution here that he is working to rebuild after some difficult years. He challenges potential applicants to send him an e-mail message or find him on Facebook—where he has 1,670 friends—and he will respond, usually within a few hours. Then, he tells them, e-mail the presidents of other colleges they are considering, and see what happens.
That hands-on approach was just what Philander Smith needed in 2004 when Mr. Kimbrough, 37 at the time, took the job. The college, once regarded as one of the nation’s premier black institutions, was in serious trouble. It had unpaid bills, dismal graduation and retention rates, and a reputation locally as a college of last resort. Mr. Kimbrough would soon discover an even more troubling problem: Philander Smith had been improperly distributing federal financial aid, according to an audit by the U.S. Department of Education. That could have meant repaying $11-million—roughly the amount of the college’s current annual budget.
Five years later, the college’s reputation is on the rise. Although Philander Smith still has a considerable way to go, Mr. Kimbrough has helped attract a stronger student body, raised retention and graduation rates, and created a buzz about the 668-student campus that it hadn’t had in years. This weekend, 103 students will graduate, 30 more than last year.
As the college’s profile has risen, so has Mr. Kimbrough’s. He has attracted national attention as an outspoken campus leader and a fresh voice in higher education—guest-blogging in The New York Times about historically black colleges and universities, or HBCU’s, and becoming a candid source of information on the subject.
“He makes waves,” says Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College for Women, in Greensboro, N.C., another private, historically black college. While some leaders are either “tree shakers” or “jelly makers,” she says, either agitating for change or doing the behind-the-scenes work to make things happen, Mr. Kimbrough is both. He has challenged historically black institutions to deliver on what they promise, but he also takes on the small jobs ensuring that a college runs well. “I like the fact that he keeps it real,” she says.
A Minister’s Son
Mr. Kimbrough looks young for his 43 years. Tall and thin, he favors dark suits and brightly colored ties. He strides across the campus with an energy that people notice. That has come in handy, he says, in facing down the many problems Philander Smith has presented.
In 2006, a federal audit found that students had received financial-aid funds without making the required academic progress. In the aftermath, those who could no longer pay their bills were forced to leave, and the college endured lengthy negotiations with the Education Department over how much it had to pay back, finally agreeing to $3-million. Meanwhile enrollment dropped by about 40 percent, and worries about where the bottom would be kept the president awake at night.
The son of a Methodist minister who led a large church in Atlanta, Mr. Kimbrough was exposed early to life in the spotlight and a job with round-the-clock demands. His parents (his mother is a college instructor and Christian-book author) remain influential in his life. As president, he called on his father for advice during the tough first year on the job, and both of his parents have come to the campus to speak. He’s tapped them for donations, too.
His involvement with Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at the University of Georgia, where he earned a biology degree in 1989, changed his career path from veterinary medicine to campus leadership. At a national convention of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate African-American fraternity, he met the president of a historically black college who suggested that he get a graduate degree in college personnel if he was interested in such a job. He did, going on to jobs in student affairs and eventually earning a doctorate in higher education. His research on black fraternities and sororities became a book called Black Greek 101 (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003), which helped make him a popular guest lecturer and expert on the history of Greek life and hazing.
He was working as vice president for student affairs at Albany State University, in Georgia, when the president’s job at Philander Smith, a Methodist-affiliated institution, became open. Larry W. Ross, the governing-board member who chaired the nominating committee, said Mr. Kimbrough’s energy and vision put him “head and shoulders above” the other candidates.
Mr. Ross, a Philander Smith alumnus and current board chair, praises Mr. Kimbrough for his strategic-planning skills. But it’s clear from watching Mr. Kimbrough that he is happiest when he’s around young people. He and his wife, Adria, whom he met at a student-affairs conference when he was working at Albany State, teach separate sections of a freshman honors course. The two classes compete in a debate at the end of the semester for bragging rights in the Kimbrough household.
Students come up to him on the campus for a hug, a handshake, or to joke around. He talks with them like a cool older cousin who likes the same rap music and television shows. That knowledge of pop culture is reflected in his nickname; the self-described “Hip Hop President” (@HipHopPrez on Twitter) won over the actress Gabrielle Union, who invited him to her birthday party after she spoke on the campus.
But he is serious about his place as a role model and mentor. Students have told him about miscarriages, abortions, or being raped. Mr. Kimbrough and his wife, who have two small children, see Philander Smith as their extended family. They attend church on the campus, take students to lunch, and let them use their living room as a meeting space. One evening this winter, during a religious service featuring a fiery female preacher and the college’s exuberant gospel choir, the presidential couple lingered, chatting with students and giving them hugs.
Adria Kimbrough, a lawyer with the University of Arkansas system, has helped Philander Smith students interested in a career in law, and she’ll lend a hand when they have personal problems as well. In her role in the state-university system, she isn’t sure she would advise administrators to have such close relationships with students. Her husband, however, says he would rather be sued than pull back from those in need.
“This to me is a ministry,” he says.
Speaking Out
Mr. Kimbrough’s vision for Philander Smith is visible all over its modest campus, which covers nine city blocks downtown and has a view of the Capitol dome from the gymnasium parking lot. The 133-year-old college is a mile from Central High School, an iconic battleground in the civil-rights saga, and less than a mile the other way from the governor’s mansion, once home to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Every building on the campus has a large plaque hanging near its entrance with Philander’s new mission statement: to graduate academically accomplished students, grounded as advocates for social justice, determined to change the world for the better.
The key word is “graduate.” When Mr. Kimbrough started, Philander Smith’s six-year graduation rate was 16 percent, and its retention rate of first-year students was just over 50 percent, far below those of many other colleges. Those numbers have improved—the graduation rate is now at 24 percent, and retention at 71 percent—but they aren’t yet close to where he wants them to be.
It’s no longer enough for historically black institutions to fulfill their traditional mission of providing access to students, Mr. Kimbrough says. Colleges need to do more to graduate the students they let in. “We can’t just be satisfied with lower graduation rates” than the general population, he says. “We need to hold ourselves accountable.”
Mr. Kimbrough bluntly called out HBCU’s last year in an Associated Press interview about the graduation rate for black students at the colleges, which is four percentage points lower than the national graduation rate for black students. The rate for black men at HBCU’s is lower still. “I think HBCU’s have gotten lazy,” he said. “That was our hallmark 40, 50 years ago. We still say ‘Nurturing, caring, the president knows you.’ That’s a lie on a lot of campuses. That’s a flat-out lie.”
That comment angered some people, says Marybeth Gasman, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania who studies historically black colleges and their leaders and who is one of Mr. Kimbrough’s fans (they blogged together for the Times). Mr. Kimbrough says he heard from one college president who believed that his comment would make fund raising more difficult. But platitudes aren’t enough anymore, says Mr. Kimbrough, who started a program at Philander Smith focused on helping black males succeed. “I don’t want us to just say it, I want to live it.”
Early in his presidency, Mr. Kimbrough gave an indication that he wouldn’t hold his tongue. When a Little Rock newspaper asked him to describe himself in one word, he chose “uncensored.” It was a stark departure from the previous administration, which had dismissed a professor for insubordination after she spoke with a newspaper about layoffs resulting from a budget deficit at the college without first alerting the president’s office. The dismissal earned Philander Smith a censure from the American Association of University Professors.
Mr. Kimbrough knows that some people consider him a controversial figure, but he doesn’t see himself that way. When he brings up touchy topics, he is just trying to start a conversation, he says. He likes engaging with people who hold different opinions—he has brought such diverse speakers as Ann Coulter, Michael Steele, and James Carville to the campus—and sees it as the best way to take on thorny problems. “Let’s talk,” he says.
After he argued publicly that giving to the wealthiest universities with the highest-achieving students was not true philanthropy and that it perpetuated the gap between the haves and the have-nots, Ms. Gasman invited him to speak at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Mr. Kimbrough says the conversation there was constructive but the timing ironic—it happened just as Penn was announcing a $3.5-billion fund-raising campaign.
John Silvanus Wilson Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, calls Mr. Kimbrough a refreshing voice in the HBCU community who is willing to try innovative things. Philander Smith’s leader is working to give his institution a distinctive voice, Mr. Wilson says, and has a way of putting out sharp messages—including saying that giving to the Harvards and Columbias of the world is not charity. “To come out and say that takes some chutzpah, and you take some risks doing that.”
Tough Love
When he started as president, Mr. Kimbrough used the same sharp approach to tell the college’s trustees, staff, and faculty members how serious the challenges were. The reality he presented them: a weak student profile and a mess on the financial side. Searching through institutional data, he found that the students’ average GPA was 2.38, with an ACT score of 15.4, both of them lower than the national averages for black students. He found unpaid utility bills in drawers, and unpaid bills for $1.5-million in tuition and fees.
The rescue plan included raising tuition to almost $9,000, up from about $6,000 (the total annual cost, including room and board, is now about $17,000). Next, he put together a strategic plan. He called it the Renaissance Plan, aiming to increase the visibility of the college, help it develop a unique identity, and strengthen its academic profile. The students he sought were those who were good enough to go a state flagship, but who would benefit from the family environment of an HBCU. “I’m looking for me,” he says.
He cleaned out the old admissions office and brought in a director from Morehouse College. He traveled to high-school award ceremonies in Chicago and other cities to recruit students, and he encouraged the admissions office to be creative. One student from Little Rock who had planned to go to Morehouse said the Philander Smith admissions director called him repeatedly to let him know he could get a full ride at the local college. (The student’s decision to attend Philander Smith led to an unexpected second free ride, when the trustee who sponsored his scholarship gave him a car from the dealership he owns.)
Lauren Allen, whom the head of fund raising calls “one of the poster children for the Kimbrough presidency,” had her sights set on Howard University before she met Mr. Kimbrough and his daughter on a visit to Philander Smith. It was the first time she had seen a college president on a campus tour. He gave the group his “e-mail the presidents” challenge, and Ms. Allen, who is from Kansas City, Mo., took him up on it. Mr. Kimbrough was the only president who responded. Later, when she told him that, he didn’t gloat; instead he told her that the president of Howard ran a large institution and was probably very busy.
Philander Smith offered her a full scholarship. She was still weighing an offer from Howard when she visited the Little Rock campus again, this time with her mother and grandparents. Mr. Kimbrough won them over. “They felt I would be safe and loved and nurtured,” she says.
Now she is graduating early and heading to law school. Ms. Kimbrough, the lawyer, helped her with the application process.
Raphael O. Lewis, chair of Philander Smith’s social-sciences division as well as an alumnus, is happy to see the reputation of the college changing. There is, however, some discussion about whether the college is giving aid to students who could otherwise afford to pay, instead of needy students who aren’t as accomplished.
Mr. Kimbrough says most of the college’s merit scholarships are need-based, because 75 percent of the students are eligible for Pell Grants. “We’re not simply buying good students,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Our scholarship students are talented AND have financial need. I’m really proud of that fact.”
HBCU Roots
The president is especially proud of this year’s freshman class, which has an average GPA of 2.89 and an ACT score of 19, higher than the 2008 average for black students nationally. The number of freshmen has grown to 161 from 144 last year (and 82 in 2006), and the college hopes to continue increasing enrollment over the next several years, to the level when Mr. Kimbrough took office. The college just broke ground on a second dormitory.
Despite the improved student profile, the college still faces several significant challenges. The average salary for full-time faculty members is just $41,300, compared with $67,232 at baccalaureate colleges. And tuition is lower than the average for private colleges in the UNCF (formerly the United Negro College Fund). Raising its tuition would allow Philander Smith to pay faculty members more and spend money on other things, but Mr. Kimbrough says increases need to be balanced with the economic situation of families in Arkansas, where the median family income, just under $39,000, is well below the national average.
Mr. Kimbrough himself, who makes $126,000 a year, has for two years turned his raises back over to the college for scholarship funds. He estimates he has given about $15,000 a year for the last two years. He and his wife also tithe to the campus church, a fact that the chaplain praised during a recent service.
Getting others to give big to Philander Smith is something that still vexes Mr. Kimbrough. Although private giving has gone up during his tenure—participation by trustees is now 100 percent—the college has not had the kind of major, transformational gifts that other institutions have seen. You don’t need to look far to see the disparity—the University of Arkansas, a three-hour drive from Little Rock, recently completed a $1-billion campaign. Philander’s entire endowment is about $13-million.
One of his goals is to break the record for the largest gift ever to an HBCU—$20-million from Bill and Camille Cosby to Spelman College in 1987—and he’s always thinking about how he can do it. As someone who prefers to engage in deep conversations, he acknowledges that his least favorite task is making small talk and schmoozing at receptions, a presidential requirement to court individual donors. Recently he and his fund-raising chief have traveled to major foundations to make their case for support.
Mr. Kimbrough has no immediate plans to leave Philander Smith—he wants to see the results of the classes he has helped shape. But at 43 and with a rising profile, he and his staff members know that he won’t be there for the rest for his career.
“The longer I stay, the harder I think it will be to turn it over,” he says. “It’s a really good place.”
When that time does come, Mr. Kimbrough says it will be for another historically black institution. While he sees value in being an administrator on a predominantly white campus—being a role model for black students or breaking down stereotypes of black men—he sees the greatest need for what he can provide at an historically black college.
“That need is magnified at HBCU’s,” he says. “It’s on another level.”
