The North Star
Welcome to The North Star—a podcast produced by the Oberlin Center for DEI Innovation and Leadership, and a space for candid conversations on leadership, legacy, and navigating complexity.
In each episode, we’ll talk with changemakers, scholars, and disruptors who are asking bold questions and reimagining what leadership looks like—in education, in community, and in the world we’re building next.
Whether you’re leading a team, building a movement, or just trying to make sense of today’s challenges, The North Star is your companion for reflection, insight, and action.
The North Star
Leading with Resolve: Dr. Herman Felton's HBCU Revolution
Dr. Herman Felton shares his remarkable journey from growing up in Jacksonville's inner city to becoming the 17th president of Wiley University, a transformative leader who has redefined what it means to lead an HBCU in today's challenging landscape.
• Product of "scarcity" who discovered his dyslexia later in life
• Joined the Marine Corps before attending Edward Waters College as a non-traditional student at age 28
• Inspired to pursue higher education leadership after witnessing his college president defend open-door admissions
• Views his role as a "disruptor" through the lens of resolve and faith
• Leads Wiley University with an understanding of its historical significance as a place founded in a Confederate stronghold
• Navigates today's higher education challenges with a measured, faith-based approach
• Co-founded the Higher Education Leadership Foundation that has produced 16 HBCU presidents in 10 years
• Believes future HBCU leaders need both specialist knowledge and a generalist understanding of all university operations
• Maintains that effective leaders ascend to the presidency rather than pursuing the title itself
• Hopes his legacy will be the multiplication of fearless, bold leaders committed to HBCU work
🔗 Find out more about Dr. JeffriAnne Wilder.
🔗 Follow the Center for DEI Innovation and Leadership on LinkedIn.
🌎Visit Oberlin College's website.
Podcast Produced by: Paradigm Media Group
Welcome to the North Star, a space for candid conversations on leadership, equity and social justice. This season, we're exploring disruption how bold leaders are challenging norms and shaping the future. Welcome to Season 2. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of being joined by Dr Herman Felton, the 17th president of Wiley University. A disruptor in higher education, who has redefined what it means to lead an HBCU in this moment. From building innovative leadership incubators to navigating today's challenges for historically black colleges and universities, his career offers powerful lessons in resilience, vision and transformation. Welcome, dr Felton.
Speaker 2:Thank you, dr Wilder, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You know, before we get started, about your leadership journey and what it means to lead Wiley University let's take it all the way back, if you don't mind Of course so before we get started, I shared how I spent 12 years living in Jacksonville, Florida, which is your hometown. Would you mind sharing with us what it was like growing up in?
Speaker 2:Jacksonville, duval County was.
Speaker 2:Duval, as they say right, it was a great experience. You know it was a great experience. You know I grew up in maybe a five mile radius and so it wasn't until I got into the Marine Corps did I really understand just how big Jacksonville was. I'm product of scarcity. I used to say poverty, but I went to Africa. I now understand that we just had meager resources. We were not in poverty. So I grew up. My mother raised six of us.
Speaker 2:We grew up in the inner city projects and went through public school, had a good time doing all the things that kids who are products of that environment do got in a little bit of trouble, play sports, but fairly. You know, unremarkable childhood experience. By all accounts, I had no idea that I was dyslexic, so I don't know if that's an indictment on you know, the school system or the zip code that I was in, whether or not we had looking back on it now. We had great teachers, but I don't know that they had the resources to really grapple with kids coming from my background, and so I pushed through high school, didn't graduate. By the time I got to the 12th grade I was in a little trouble, or what would be the 12th grade? I repeated the 11th and was, you know, strongly encouraged to go into the Marine Corps by someone in law enforcement and someone with a robe on. So I went into the Marine Corps and enjoyed life after.
Speaker 2:But growing up I had all the little league sports, the Pop Warner, football, we, we did all the mischievous things and, of course, navigating through the 80s. You know the crack pandemic and epidemic. It hit us hard but we navigated through those things and I think I had. I'm grateful for my childhood but it was pretty cool growing up in Jacksonville. They were anti growth back in the early 80s and late 80s and early 90s, so it wasn't what it is today but it was a pretty cool space to grow up in.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so fast forward. Growing up in Jacksonville, I recall just knowing a little bit about your background you spent some time in the Marine Corps and then you end up going to and attending college as a non-traditional student at the oldest historically-backed college in the state of Florida Edward Waters, now University right and then you end up in law school at the University of Florida.
Speaker 2:How did you get?
Speaker 1:from Edward Waters to UF Law.
Speaker 2:Dear old Edward Waters. I was working at the bulk mail processing center for the US Postal Service, which was my dream job, and I realized that there was something more. So I went to enroll into FCJ at the time, but it's called Florida State and Community State College now, and there was a recruiter from Everett Waters there and asked if I'd ever thought about going to Edward Waters. Had no idea what it was. I said look, I only have a GED, so if I can get in I'd be happy to come. I went with him and the rest was history.
Speaker 2:That how I got to Florida was directly attributable to one the culture and the community. But granularly I was the SGA president and at the time my president, dr Jimmy R Jenkins Sr. We were in a board meeting. It was my first as a student trustee and I sat and watched the board, you know, really make a decision, or try to make a decision, about increasing the admission standards and getting rid of the open door policy, and I had no idea how much that two hour session would change the trajectory of my life. One after another, each board member went around the table arguing to do this, to increase the standards, to get a different type of student, et cetera, et cetera. And if I'd ever seen assault with a deadly weapon verbal being the weapon, the mouth, the tongue being the weapon occurred, this was my first time watching a powerful orator and a persuasive person. But he tied the mission why we were ever founded, the mission of Edward Waters, where we are today and where we're going. It shifted the movement and I thought that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I got into college because it was open door admissions, but it was something about advocating for the least of us which I couldn't articulate then. But it was that and it led me to a dinner with him to tell him, like I'd like to do what you do when I grow up. And he told me I needed to get a terminal degree and I couldn't determine what area of focus. So we went back and forth about that and he said, well, we'll go get a law degree. And that's how it happened Went out to the University of Florida and got that degree from there, but it was only for a meal ticket to be qualified to satisfy the doctoral degree, to be a college friend.
Speaker 1:But even in that story right. So we're thinking about. What we're really interested in hearing over the course of this season is about disruption, and even in that story I heard disruption right when you think about leadership, particularly college presidencies right.
Speaker 1:It's all about being a disruptor and a change agent, right? So you've often been described as a disruptor throughout your career. How do you see that word applying beyond that moment sitting in the board of trustees when you decided okay, I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I need to become a college president? Beyond that moment, how else do you see that word applying to the rest of your career?
Speaker 2:You know, it wasn't until two years ago. Three years ago, my sister, my youngest sister, made all of us do the Ancestrycom, and that led to African Ancestrycom. And that led to a genealogist and we traced our origin, and I am Ashanti, the Akan people of what is modern day, accra, ghana.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That the Ashanti war, the Akan warrior is fearless. The descriptors fit what I am today and I don't know if it is so much a disruptor. I think it's much more about. I think disruptor is used because it seems to be uncommon, but I think it's resolve. It's resolve with faith right, like, I think, the relationship that I have with God now.
Speaker 2:My mom always made us go to church and, you know, being the maladjusted child in the family out of the bunch, I didn't care too much for church, but it is everything for me now, and after going to the Marine Corps, I started to develop a very strong personal faith, and so my conversations with God are very clear and I'm resolved when I leave those. And so, watching that moment and looking at what I did to fight through being dyslexic to even navigate high school and memorizing everything that I could possibly do to save myself from embarrassment or the fear of my secret being let out, that was disruption for me, that was resolve. It was I need to do this. So I've been more in tune with thoughts that I think I have are really implanted visions from God, and if it is with me, I'm clear that it is from him, and so I'm resolved about doing my father's business. So it was so impactful to have somebody advocate for you.
Speaker 2:And you know, when I went to Edward Waters I was 28 years old and that was my first encounter with President Jenkins was the first time a black man said to me you can do whatever you want. He said that in a bridge program and that was something that was. I had no idea that I was missing, but as soon as I heard it it resonated and it filled a void. But it also created a yearning for more affirmation from a male, a black male. And so I set out to you know, really please him.
Speaker 2:I set out to you know, really please him. But I think that moment is intertwined with my origin story, who I am and where I'm from, and my mother diminutive stature, you know, 4'11" was the most fierce resolve go-getter that I've ever met. So I think in earnest, it's all been inside and what I inherently believe there's a spark waiting to be tapped for implosion or explosion in all of us and I think that moment culminated a series of events that put me on the trajectory to find where I think great impact for a great portion of my life will be made, and that's it. Higher education at a black college.
Speaker 1:What I'm hearing is that you've been in training for this role for a really long time, right, yeah, so you've been at Wiley since 2017, and this is not your first presidency at an HBCU, and your path into the presidency wasn't necessarily a traditional one. How has that path shaped your perspective on leadership in higher education?
Speaker 2:So it's afforded me this opportunity to be in spaces that, had I not went to college, I wouldn't be in. No knock to the talented 10th, but oftentimes there's not enough room for the 90 percentile of the populace, and that thought is oftentimes centered around the 10%, and I'm the 90%.
Speaker 2:That is who I am, that is fundamentally who I am, and so the idea of opening the aperture of the 10% so that as many of the 90 percentile folk can come through is what motivates me. 90 percentile vote can come through is what motivates me. I absolutely love to be in spaces where people automatically assume I'm two parent, upper crest, you know, suburban child because of my educational attainments, and I think it'd be, you know further for the first generation on both sides to go to college and certainly to achieve this profession. So what it does for me is fight harder for hermits, because there are goo gobs of them out there, right. And so the idea to be resolved, about filling a void is what?
Speaker 2:What drives me daily in my personal and professional life. Professionally, knowing that we are a peculiar people all humans are. But I think about the challenges and the obstacles that we've overcome, and I'm very clear that being the progeny of enslaved means something already the fact that my ancestors actually survived the atrocities means that, through my blood and the very being of me as a person who is destined for something remarkable and being really a battering ram to open up that door for others, for all, is something that I take pride in, and so I think that resolve to you know, open up the aperture so everybody can run come get in, is what really really drives the edge.
Speaker 1:So that's actually a really great setup for. My next question is sort of your approach to being the president at Wiley, and I know that your approach is really one that is sort of rooted in being bold and audacious right. And we know that for some folks who may not know, and we know that for some folks who may not know, you know Wiley University. Wiley, formerly college, now university, is featured in the 2007 film the Great Debaters as its own unique history.
Speaker 2:How has that influenced the way you approach your leadership as the president? When you walk across these grounds, I think most institutions will exclaim that they're sacred and hallowed, and if you're quiet you can hear the ancestors in the clouds. We believe that here. We know that when those four gentlemen stood around the barrel after the emancipation or Juneteenth and trying to figure out what, for the newly and free slave, is next, the idea moved to the Freedmen's AIDS Bureau and born in it was this place. The audacity why I love that word is because they decided to create an educational institution in a place that was a foothold for the Confederacy Marshall Harrison County, pound for pound has more lynchings in it, and it was a headquarters for the Confederate. So the idea that, just as this period is coming to an end or so, they thought you want to build an educational institution for those who are three fifths of a man, that's audacity, that's old, and so it is who we are as a college, as a university, and so I am doing nothing more than what the other 16 here we were founded out of necessity.
Speaker 2:James Farmer, the founder of CORE, and Opal Lee, the mother of Juneteenth, were on this campus. Hemant Swet, who has the foundational case for Brown v Board of Education. He sued the University of Texas and Thurgood Marshall argued that case. That is here. It's expected of me, as the president, to be at the tip of the spear, making sure that social justice and opportunities are met with the right, measured response, and I absolutely can't imagine being in any other place, because my personal ethos line up with the ethos of this institution. It's on you here and it is a part of the fabric of the institution and I'm precisely where I need to be.
Speaker 1:I'm getting goosebumps, as you just talked about that. So I'm at Oberlin College and I'm precisely where I need to be. I'm getting goosebumps, as you just talked about that. So I'm at Oberlin College and you know, we talk about the history of Oberlin College being, you know, having that history of being the first college in the nation to open its doors to women and students of color, and it's, you know, when you just talked about the history of Wiley, you just talked about the history of Wiley. It is exactly why there is so much pride that anchors, historically, black colleges and universities, and so that's really, really important.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about a different type of disruption. This year, I think higher education, regardless of the type of institution one is a part of, has seen a type of disruption that we've never seen before. I've been working in higher ed since 2000, and the landscape for colleges and universities, sort of writ large, has been riddled with disruption all year long, from funding shifts, policy pressures, cultural headwinds. What is this season of disruption, specifically within the context of higher education, meant for you and required of you now?
Speaker 2:It's required a double down on resolve, a double downing of resolve. And I've went back and did more historical reading than I've ever done in my presidency and I had a moment, moment. I'll never forget, this seminal moment, where I was coming across a sermon that Martin Luther King Jr was giving and he talked about being maladjusted about something. Oftentimes psychosis is associated with maladjustment, but he really helped me understand to be maladjusted about a particular thing or things is where we need to be, and that shifted my mindset from focusing on the fear of the unknown, or the fog of war as we would call it in the Marine Corps, to focusing on what's in front of me. Right, like, I'm going to respond to what is in front of me, and I think where we're at now, one would have to argue if the shakeup will invariably, some elements of it, be good for higher education. So my mindset, first and foremost, I'm always going back to what happened to my ancestors, and if I'm going to sit around the barrel and cry about a policy that doesn't feel good, then I'm not fit to be, particularly the leader of an institution that is responsible for shaping the souls of the next wave of leaders, and so I keep that very clear.
Speaker 2:I'm resolved and measured in most cases, while I'm always smiling, there's always a level of gravity that meets every moment, and I'm earnestly inherited from my mother and father and enhanced by the Marine Corps. And so, whatever is coming down the pipe, there's this old saying those who wish to defeat the gods first must make them mad or angry. One of those. And the gist is, if you're consumed with emotion, your ability to do what is in front of you is severely decreased to do it well. And so I think all of higher ed and America and the globe, during these trying times, would be well served to be calm and measured, be well served to be calm and measured.
Speaker 2:And in the Marine Corps, we were taught to focus on what was said as opposed to how, and in this instance, the shock and awe of things are driving us to move in ways, sometimes prematurely, sometimes with emotion, but sit back and settle and let it land and move from there. At the end of the day, we're at an institution of faith. I'm a man of faith and while I'm going to be prepared, I'm leading with faith, and so I know that God is telling me that this too shall pass and we will be stronger, and so we move, and we move deliberately and intentionally, with kindness.
Speaker 2:That's where it's at for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my president says that a lot right, distilling the emotion from things, kind of bowling that out and kind of tempering yourself as you move along. How are your students feeling in these moments? What are they asking of you in these times?
Speaker 2:You know, that's a really good question because we have this spectrum, right. We have about 30% of our students are brown and the rest the other 65 percent, are color and five or other international white, and so there's this wonderful mix of feelings Right when, when President Trump was elected, a large swath of our students who are brown were elated in the parking lot, banners, going crazy, et cetera, and there was this moment on our campus where there was joy and pain. It was a rift for a minute. It was a tough situation because I don't think our students knew the political ideologies of each other until the announcing of who won, and so to watch them work through that helped me address them in ways that was fair and balanced, neutral but rooted in facts. And I think what they want from me is no emotion but facts. They want leadership without emotion. They want leadership that is slanted to one side or the other.
Speaker 2:I espouse every day, tuesdays at chapel, when the old college shuts down. We go worship, but I remind them that Wiley is a place for all and always have been Trans, white, black, atheist, agnostic. It doesn't matter who you are. You are welcome here and your ticket to admission is to accept everybody here. If that's something that is incongruent with your spirit, this is the place for you, and I think they've come to know that. This is a place of kindness where we see each other, and certainly as the home of the great debaters. If you can't have civil discourse and everybody leave with all their body parts, then you know this isn't what you signed up for and this is not for you, and so I think they want me to be consistent with kindness. I think they want me to be consistent with advocating for the least of us, and I think they want me to be consistent with kindness. I think they want me to be consistent with advocating for the least of us, and I think they want me consistent to our institutional ethos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's important. What do you think most people get wrong about HBCUs?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Do we have enough time? Yeah, no, I think different we have enough time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think different. They think different is deficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's what they get wrong from us.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And because the facts are what they are. We produce more generals, more doctors, more lawyers, more educators, more any everything you want to talk about in professional schools, than anybody else.
Speaker 2:And so we've been punching well above our weight class since inception. The cards were stacked against us from day one, and yet we have risen and we continue to rise. So you know, I typically, out of one of my maladjusted personalities, I typically won't respond to those questions because they're absurd on their face. Any objective or subjective person for that matter, can come to a place and look at why we were founded, number one, and second what we've been able to do to understand who we are and what we're capable of doing. So I think this misnomer that they're different and it's deficient different is the thing that irks me the most. But I think people fail to realize that we have aviation programs, we have medical, dental, we have the science, the arts, whatever they have at those other places, the other institutions we have at our institutions, really large. So there is no separation. There is just a matter of imbalance as it comes to the way we're funded and, unfortunately for others, there's laws that, or legislation or lawsuits that you know, confirm that we've been grossly underfunded intentionally.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So let's shift gears a little bit. But you know you were just talking about how you know. The facts don't lie, the numbers don't lie. Hbcus have produced the most professionals in all of the areas, right, graduate professional degrees. And you have been for the past 10 years, through the Higher Education Leadership Foundation, creating pathways for presidents of HBCUs. So can we talk a little bit more about the Higher Education Leadership Foundation and the pipeline and incubator programs you've created? So two strands of that to those programs. One, there is a presidential pathway program. I didn't mean for that to be an alliteration. And then you just recently launched a sort of mid-career for folks who want to, who are aspiring, who aren't quite yet ready to be presidents, for folks who can, who want to be mid-career right yeah, specifically to develop future HBCU leaders. Why was this so important to you?
Speaker 2:11 years ago I went to a leadership program and I quickly surmised that I did not have nor did my president have the celebrity to pick up a phone call and say, hey, I've got this young person who's committed, who is trained, who is highly disciplined, highly skilled and who could be of service. And I've also found that, if you didn't come from that quote unquote pedigree or that affiliation, that people you know, we are peculiar people. I mean that sincerely. And in this space there are just tons of gatekeepers, and I've always been a person who's tried to, you know, bust gates open. And so I thought how about we create something where we have like-minded people who are committed to the space to come together? Never in my wildest dreams with my partners Melva Wallace, who's the president of Houston Tillis, alfred Anthony Pinkard, who was the president at Wilberforce, who came as provost with me and when I left was appointed president. And this young fellow by the name of Gregory Dees, who was a student of mine, who is very talented with marketing and communication skills. He's responsible for our look, our logo and everything else our website. Never did we imagine that we would have a modicum of impact.
Speaker 2:We originally started our first institute at Miles College, president George French allowed us to come on his campus, kept it small. We had one person pay to come, one person and everybody. At the end at our pinning ceremonies we really didn't know what to think. We didn't know what to think, turns out, our next institute. We had about 50 applications and so we were able to see the class with people that paid all 20 of them.
Speaker 2:It grew from there, but what we kept noticing, our focal point has never been about the presidency. It's about really strengthening the pipeline, and I thought that leaders ascend to the presidency. Presidents who want to be presidents are performative and they don't last in this space because that performative desire to be a president, that's not it. When you find people who are both specialists and generalists, they stick, they're prepared and they're doing the work for for a good reason. So, but what we kept finding was we were getting applications for everybody mid-level managers, et cetera and we we couldn't service that.
Speaker 2:And so we're now just at this point where we had to sit and really think about our next iteration and we thought we wanted to do more and if we're really going to address the entire pipeline, we can't wait until they become vice presidents, let's find them where they are. And so we've opened up and our first institute will be in December. Five months of it will be virtual and it'll culminate with a four-day institute. We've got about 45 folks already signed up and so we started and it came organically, and that's what we love about it. We've self-funded. We do this work at nighttime. We build health in the garage.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, we built health in the garage and I can tell you this, if it weren't for the Michael Sorrells, who's an alum of Oakland, duvon Wormack, rosalind Clark artists you know, roderick Smothers, all these people who have come, hakeem Lucas, a Zachary Faison.
Speaker 2:If it weren't for these people, who are rooted in strengthening the pipeline, help would not have the type of resonance that it has, and we have been able to do more than just the leadership training. We've been able to do some other pretty cool things, and it's because the space has a group of leaders, a cadre of them, that are committed to leaving the place better than we found it, but also pulling on the rear bus, and that the gate opens so that there's no more gatekeeping at the levels that we experienced while we got here.
Speaker 1:I love that. Now, if that's not disruption, I don't know what is, because you already know this. I already know this the average college president not necessarily HBCUs, of course average college president is 60-year-old white male. Average college president is 60 year old, white male and um through these programs. So this leadership training and leadership development programs, you have created, among other leaders, 12 presidents, three interim presidents right and correct me if I rock.
Speaker 1:Those numbers need to be updated that's up to 16 presidents, and three entrants in 10 years yeah yeah, self-funded, in the garage at nighttime and we know you work in more than 40 hours a week. Yeah, we already know is it.
Speaker 2:Is it labor, though? Is it if it's purpose and passion, if it's driven by Christ? Is it labor? That's right. I have not worked since I left the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:I love that Right. It's not work if you're really doing what you love, right.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I bought this book last week. I just read the first couple of chapters. I want to kind of see how it lands with you. So Beverly Danielle Tatum, who, former president of Spelman, just published Peril and Promise College Leadership in Turbulent Times, president and all the challenges that today's university presidents face extraordinary pressure. 15, 20 years ago I thought that's a job that I want. I don't think so anymore. I'll take my day job. I'm cool here Political attacks, financial constraints, social unrest, challenges around diversity, equity and inclusion. She argues that bold, courageous leadership is needed now more than ever. So, as someone who has walked the path to becoming a college president and, of course, who's actively shaping tomorrow's leaders, what does it take today? What do the next generation need of HBCU presidents need most? What qualities are needed for this next generation of leaders who are coming up?
Speaker 2:So I talked about just a few minutes ago this, this, this ideal that leaders who ascend to the presidency, the seat of the presidency, are best equipped to stay. That went back as far back to 2006 or 7, when Walter Kimbrough, Priscilla Slade and Michael Sorrell were appointed. Good looking black people, fairly young. The collision with social media you now have a picture of what it looks like to be a president at an HBCU and those people made it look good and easy and fun.
Speaker 2:And I think as a result of that, you had a bunch of people who only wanted to be a president. That's all you hear everywhere you go. Every time we have the leadership I want to be a president. I always tell people what you want to do is be a leader. That has two skills that are extremely invaluable. You're a specialist, meaning you came up through academic affairs. You know the profession or institutional advancement, like I did. You know the profession or institutional advancement, like I did, and then you also need to be a generalist. You need to be able to sit around the table and know enough to be more than dangerous with every salient area in the academic apparatus.
Speaker 2:Second, if you don't know what leadership is, what leadership really is, there's going to be a problem, because leadership requires one of those things that is often not really talked about and that's selective amnesia and hearing. You don't want to hear everything. You don't need to hear everything. You don't need to hear everything. It does not do you any good to be on social media or listen to what the alums say, or doing this or that. If you're consumed by that, then that tells me that ego is alive and you're going to fall. Presidents the successful ones are, I think, by and large without ego, and the work is really about the work Right, and so, I think, for the new leaders, find your gaps. Where are you weak at? Right, you want to have a conversation for a vacancy. You don't want to have an interview for a position, right, and so if you've been laboring in the vineyard and you've been working and you've been picking up skills, stretch assignments, you've been on SACS teams internally, you've spent time trying to understand what it really means to have a zero base, a zero balance but zero base budget. Or you understand what the tuition difference is, the net tuition from your tuition. I think, the way in which the tuition model works, all of them are different, the states are different, the public's are different, the private's.
Speaker 2:But understanding the nuances, understanding that student affairs is more than just throwing parties and homecoming, understanding that one area that will absolutely obliterate you, understanding that athletics will bankrupt you, that the ban can create all kinds of problems, you have to have a holistic view, and so I often share that. As a vice president, you have a corner office downtown and it's beautiful and you're almost linear and myopic in your vision and your sight. The president has a panoramic view. If you can find yourself with an understanding that is analogous to a panoramic view about the salient areas and you know how to lead, I think you're much more inclined to have a conversation about a vacancy than having an interview about a position that you want to feel. I think that our future is bright because I get to see the next wave and there are some brothers and sisters that are ready to assume the mantle and they're right now perfecting their crafts and they're being serious. They're scholars, they're practitioners and administrators all wrapped in one, and I think the future is bright.
Speaker 2:I don't share the sentiment with most people and I don't think this job is hard. I don't think that there is peril. There are some challenges and certainly President Tatum has a prism that I don't have, and I think that what she is arguing from the excerpts is spot on. However, I don't find any challenges. I see opportunities and I'm not being, you know, a person playing on semantics. I've just committed myself to this work and I'm serious about filling my voids and I love this work and so I'm always committed to it, much to the chagrin of my wife and my family. I love what I'm doing and so I do work. I'm about this life, absolutely love it. So, yes, we need a different kind of leader right now, with a different skill set. But I think coming up in the rear is the cavalry, and I think there are, you know, some qualified, highly skilled, disciplined, competent leaders, both male and female, waiting to take the battle.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about that. Now I've only read the first couple chapters, so maybe by the time we get to the end there's alignment between what you're saying and what she's saying, by the way, we need you to write that book, right?
Speaker 2:If God sees fit, after I've retired long, because when I leave I'm exiting stage left.
Speaker 1:You don't need to wait that long. That's too long of a wait, President Elton.
Speaker 2:I have some aspirations and some desires here that require all of my attention, and writing is not one of them right, that ain't it Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, well, as we wrap things up, we typically end with three rapid fire questions, if that's okay with you. Sure, first thing something that keeps you up at night.
Speaker 2:Oh, making way out of no way. Yeah, how do I get the best?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I thought you was gonna say Waffle House. I heard you on another podcast saying that you love. Waffle House smothered covered in listen. I thought you was gonna say that.
Speaker 2:No, that's all. Yeah, no, that's yeah. And I meant deficient. In my mind I went to deficient. So I should have been optimistic and went with my first thought, but I thought that's mother's covenant. Yep Waffle House is the most wonderful, favorite, best amazing restaurant in America, in the world. It's lovely, it's lovely yeah.
Speaker 1:I've never been to Waffle House during the day. Well, anyway, something that has made you smile big this week.
Speaker 2:My family all the time.
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:My family, every all of them my kids, my wife, my brothers, my sisters. My second to the youngest sister is being ordained at my sister her husband's church this weekend. So I'm on, you know I'm on cloud nine. So my family, my family, makes me smile all the time and I have pictures of them all throughout my office, my whole family.
Speaker 1:I love that. Nothing like family. And lastly, a little bit deeper. So 10 years from now, when we look back at this moment for HBCUs and higher education, what kind of disruption do you hope for your leadership and Wiley's example will represent?
Speaker 2:Multiplication, and Wiley's example will represent Multiplication. Maxwell talks about the supreme in leadership is to multiply that effective leader, that disruptor. If I'm able to help people find their disruption on a large scale and we have a litany of fearless, bold people committed to this work that would make my heart smile.
Speaker 1:President, Herman Felton reminds us that disruption isn't just about change. It's about resolve, vision and preparing the next generation to lead. Thank you so much for joining us on the North Star. Stay tuned for more conversations with leaders who are reshaping what's possible.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you.