Who Will Save Hillman?
If Hillman is going to turn things around — and fast — then Chancellor Wayne must look to its alumni base to solve their mounting problems.
September 25, 2017
Hillman University is about to implode.
There, I said it.
It is not a very popular opinion. In fact, alumni of Hillman would like to believe that all is well. After all, on the surface, things aren’t too shabby. In the last 10 years, Hillman has erected over 16 new buildings, launched the first ever space research center on an HBCU campus, and built an endowment that fell just short of 1 billion dollars. From 1992–2011, Hillman recorded unprecedented growth and tremendous success both on and off the football field. Fundraising records were broken as university presidents all over the nation were clamoring to figure out how President Dorothy Dandrige — Hillman’s first woman chancellor — was able to grow a private liberal arts college with an enrollment of just under 6,000 to a world class institution that at its peak, bolstered an enrollment of just over 17,000. At its peak, Hillman admitted over 1,000 Fredrick Douglass Scholars in three years. To put that in perspective: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton have admitted 11 Douglas Scholars in the same time span…combined. At its peak, Hillman University’s 97% graduation rate was among the highest in the nation. Its alumni averaged a $70,000 salary right out of college and by 2011, Hillman University’s alumni included the chairman and COO of the fastest growing software company in the nation, the pastor of the largest megachurch in Washington DC, a world renowned Black History Professor, several college deans, CEOs, 2 Senators, a mayor, and the First Black President elected to the US.
That was in 2011.
Then, on that fateful night on October 31, 2011, a night forever marred in infamy known simply as “Hashtag Halloween Queen” (#HalloweenQueen) changed Hillman forever when Tamiko Bradshaw, Miss Hillman-elect, hung herself in her campus apartment after news of her transgender status was made public by a leaker. Tamiko’s death sent shockwaves across America as her death was live streamed to nearly 2,000 people and, in true HBCU-lack-of-social-media-training-for-students-that-I-have-been-begging-for-since-2009, Hillmanites catapulted the video to the number one trending topic…in the world. By the time the video was taken 12 hours later, it had been retweeted nearly 30,000 times and viewed almost 10 x that.
And then Hillman unraveled.
A mere two days after Tamiko’s death, President Davenport was unceremoniously removed from her presidential post in a contentious Board of Trustees meeting that almost ended in at least one arrest. Over the next few weeks, the Campus Safety Director, Head of Greek Life, Vice President of Student Affairs, Dean of Students, and National Alumni Association President were all fired or resigned.
Then came the announcement that the Department of Education would be launching an internal investigation into the university after a judge determined that Tamiko’s death may have been a violation of Title X— a civil rights provision that protected transpersons and their civil liberties on college campuses. Internal digging by federal agents also uncovered a growing debt that had ballooned to nearly $40,000,000 (4oM) — no one could say why. Then, five days after the installation of its new Chancellor, the state of Virginia filed a motion to overtake both the Medical and Law School claiming “financial, administrative, perpetual, and habitual instability.” To add insult to injury, the state also filed a motion to turn the failing colleges over to the neighboring Virginia A&M — a move that was met with anger by Hillman’s 125,000 active alumni.
Then came the arrest of 6 Hillman students in the aftermath of the Baltimore riots that took place after the death of Freddie Grey. Chancellor Wayne took heat from the Governor of Virginia and a few state legislatures for bailing out students — a move that pitted Hillman’s BOT chairwoman against him. His first year of internal bleeding did not stop there as he battled the sudden death of a beloved alumni (his first day on the job), the university’s most popular program going on strike after a six- week delay in pay, an athletic program drowning in nearly $15M in debt- nearly half of the school’s overall debt — growing discontent among student body leadership, a dwindling enrollment, and three, Three, THREE federal inquiries into the schools’ spending, financial records, and Title X compliance. To make matters worse, over 40,000 of Hillman’s alumni — nearly 25% — signed an online petition calling for the removal of President Wayne after he abruptly fired longtime football coach Eddie Williamson in the middle of the football season after back to back 2-win seasons. It’s wonder Dr. Wayne even survived his first year. Rumors swirled that Dr. Wayne heavily considered resigning after just 11 months in the posiiton and return to his post as chairman and CEO of Genius, Black.
When it rained at Hillman, it poured, flooded, and earthquake and now, the earth is about to open up and swallow one of America’s most beloved Black colleges. As Chancellor Wayne enters his 3rd year as head of Hillman, the stakes are higher than ever. Two of the three federal investigations have been mysteriously dismissed — a move many of Hillman’s opponents claim is the work of The university’s most visible and powerful alumni — The President of the United States. Dr. Dwayne also signed longtime Assistant Billy Dee Meeks as head coach who has amassed over 10 wins in the previous two seasons and has already racked up wins against regional rivals Hampton, Norfolk, and Howard University. Chancellor Wayne and his team managed to cut the football deficit in half (Thanks largely in part to First Lady Gilbert-Wayne and her impeccable fundraising skills). His administration resolved the pay dispute with the chemistry department, successfully blocked the motion of the state’s takeover of it’s law and medical schools, and temporarily suspended the hemorrhaging enrollment decline — for now. As of September 2017, Hillman’s enrollment hovered just under 10,000 students.
Still, Hillman is in peril. It’s not a real cute pill to swallow, but if Hillman does not do something, and fast, things will not work out the way it should.
Simply put, Hillman needs to get its sh*T together.
The Key to Hillman’s Bounce Back Game: Its Graduates
Fortunately for Dr. Wayne, he does not have to look too far to help him fill the positions and deanships he needs to build the team necessary to take Hillman to the next level. Obviously, a school lacking deans at the law school, medical school, as well as a vacant athletic director position and alumni affairs director cannot operate at its optimal level with those types of vacancies. Hillman does not have to look very far to solve her problems. In fact, if Dr. Wayne really wanted to make some noise, his best bet would be to turn this year’s Homecoming into a recruitment and hiring fair.
The biggest hurdle facing Hillman right now are the administrative vacancies: The law school, medical school, and Alumni director positions are the most crucial moving forward as Hillman’s upcoming accreditation visit will look at these areas first. The next critical area is financial stability. The third and final key to Hillman’s survival is overcoming the federal Title X inquiry. Did you get all of that? Recap: If Hillman has any chance of being around in 2030, it must address the administrative vacancies, financial instability and federal lawsuit alleging civil rights violations.
The excellent thing about HBCUs is that there is never a shortage of qualified, experienced, and motivated Black Excellence to call on in a time of need –and Hillman is no exception. If the university is serious about tackling these problems, and the they want to pull the school away from the grasp of an imminent state takeover, then Dr. Wayne is going to have to pull out his rolodex, get on the phone, and start making some serious calls.
I have compiled a shortlist of candidates I believe are more than qualified to fill Hillman’s vacancies. After I started compiling this list, it started to get pretty long so I decided to break them up. Part I focuses on the Medical school.
Hillman Medical School : A Fading Gem
25 years ago, if you were a graduate of The Hillman Medical School, you were considered the cream of the crop. The school produced some of the most successful and extraordinary Black doctors in the nation. From 1935 until 1970, if you were Black and a doctor, the chances that you received your medical training from Hillman was almost 100%. The college maintained a 95% passage rate on the MCAT, and routinely placed graduates on every level of healthcare including hospital administration, trauma and ER, and professorships. The “MD-in-3” program, inacted in 1989, was one of the first programs of its kind to provide Black students with a hybrid learning experience and the opportunity to earn a doctorate and complete a residency program in just three years. The program has been cited for dramatically increasing the percentage of African-Americans’ access to quality healthcare in some of Virginia’s most rural areas due to the influx of qualitiied and credentialed Black doctors.
That was in 1992.
Then, slowly over time, the Hillman Medical School became less of a priority for Dr. Davenport as the school’s success seen as expected rather than the result of of student-centered, strategic growth.” Funds were funneled from recruiting efforts and placed in other areas. The decline was gradual at first. Then, by 2002, Hillman’s incoming medical class was struggling to pass the MCAT on the first try. The school took a major loss in leadership when its longtime dean Medgar Yvette died unexpectedly in 2004. The school has seen an unprecedented 5 interim deans in 13 years and has not admitted a single student to the Virigina bar in almost 2 years.
Not. A. Single. Student. From. Hillman. Law. School. Has. Passed. The. Virginia. Bar. In. Two. Years.
Y'all…that’s a problem.
Taking the helm of Hillman’s Medical School means having a keen grasp on connecting Black students to the medical profession. Access to quality healthcare has been cited in multiple studies as the greatest indicator of the quality of one’s life. The Dean of The Hillman Medical School should be people-oriented and entrepreneurial. S/He must have firm understanding of the intersection of medicine, access, enterprise, and professionalism. The incoming dean must be a master communicator and an elite fundraiser — nearly $10 million of HIllman’s mounting debt belongs to the fledgling school. Here are two alumni who I feel have what it takes to take the law school to the next level.
Dr. Kimberly Reese-Boyer, Class of ‘92
Profile
Dr. Kimberly Reese-Boyer is a 1992 graduate of Hillman’s pre-med program. In 1993, she entered Hillman Medical School with a focus in trauma and gun violence. Dr. Reese-Boyer completed the program in 1996 and completed her residency at Richmond Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia in 1998 where she remained at the hospital as a trauma surgeon. In 2000, Dr. Reese moved to Kingston, Jamaica with husband (and fellow Hillman alum and doctor) Spencer Boyer where they used their life savings and a small loan from Boyer’s parents to build a state-of-the-art trauma clinic in the city. In 2004, Dr. Reese became the head administrator of the clinic when her husband was appointed to run a medical hospital in Montego Bay. 5 years later, the Boyers bought another medical facility after securing a $30 million dollar grant from the World Health Organization to build Reese Medical Center, Kingston’s first solar-powered hospital and trauma center. Reese and her husband are credited with reducing deaths as a result or gun and knife violence by more than 50% in the city by slashing response times in half. In 2013, the couple broke ground on a maturity ward clinic specializing in training local women and girls to be mid-wives. Reese-Boyer is the mother of 3 sets of twins, 4 boys and 2 girls.
Dr. Reese-Boyer would be an excellent addition to Hillman’s administrative team– she is really that Bad & Black & Black & Bad. There are very few alumni, past or active, who have accomplished as much as this woman. In the past 20 years, she has owned and operated two medical clinics, a trauma center, maternity ward, and mid-wife training facility in a developing nation. She has first-person connection contacts to major international federal donors and ample experience in managing large-scale budgets. Not to mention, Dr. Reese-Boyer is still an actual doctor. She regularly steps into the operating room to train up and coming Jamaican doctors and teach them when duty calls. There was some talk a few years ago about a medical bridge program between Hillman and Kingston but it never materialized. Still, Dr. Reese-Boyer can provide the financial, technical, administrative, and entrepreneurial expertise to turn Hillman’s fledgling medical school around. I would love to see a partneship between Hillman and Jamaica. Dr. Reese-Boyer needs to make that happen.
Dr. Spencer Boyer, Class of ‘92
Profile
The only person as qualified, if not more qualified to run the Hillman Medical School than Dr. Reese-Boyer is her husband, Dr. Spencer Boyer. A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Dr. Boyer is a first-generation college student who came to Hillman in 1989 majoring in biology. Dr. Boyer finished the program in 3 years, completing his senior year classes in the spring of 1992. The following fall, Dr. Boyer joined his future wife at Hillman Medical School where he completed the “MD-in-3” program in the summer of 1996. Dr. Boyer relocated back to Jamaica in September of that year to accept a position as Assistant Medical Director at the US Embassy in Kingston. While in this position, Dr. Boyer was able to pipeline over 100 Jamaican students to HBCU medical programs in a four-year span. In 2000, Dr. Boyer joined his wife to open their first medical center in the heart of his hometown where he served as Chief Surgeon, Medical Director, Chief of Personnel for 4 years. In 2004, he turned over the day-to-day operations of the center to his wife and accepted a position with the Montego Bay Medical Association as the Head of Surgeon Practitioners. Dr. Boyer was primarily responsible for training surgeons and nurses on a patented surgical technique he perfected while attending Hillman. In 2009, Dr. Boyer returned to Kingston, this time with a $30 million dollar grant to open his second medical trauma center in Kingston. Most recently, Dr. Boyer and his wife broke ground on a maternity ward in hopes of drastically eliminating Jamaica’s birth morality rate.
Dr. Boyer’s appointment would not be without some scrutiny. In 2011, he was investigated by the World Health Organization over the misuse of funds stemming from the multi-million-dollar grant awarded to him and his wife. The investigation lasted for 6 months and resulted in The Boyers having to pay back about $10,000 in authorized spending. Boyer maintained his innocence throughout insisting that the discrepancy was an administrative error and paid back the funds immediately. He issued a public apology to the WHO who barred him and his wife from applying for anymore of their grants for a one-year period — a deal brokered by the Boyer’s attorney (and fellow Hillman alum) Freddy Brooks. In the grand scheme of things, $10,000 of a $30,000,000-dollar grant is miniscule at best. Dr. Boyer’s professional reputation is still intact as rumor has it he and his wife are looking to open their 3rd medical clinic in The Bahamas. We can only hope that Dr. Wayne snatches up these two brilliant change agents before they make their next professional move.
Tomorrow, I’ll present part II: The Law School.
God speed, Hillman.
Love,
Marcus E.B.DuKing X, Hillman, Class of 2005
