Darton State College Interim President Richard Carvajal sees opportunities in consolidation

ALBANY — Richard Carvajal spent more than an hour shaking hands and chatting with well-wishers Friday during a reception introducing him as Darton State College’s new interim president.

Years from now, he may look back upon the day as the easiest in his career at Darton. Carvajal, will join with Albany State University President Art Dunning to guide the consolidation of the two institutions into the new Albany State University.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a university by taking the very best of Darton and the very best of Albany State and combining them into one institution to create something that is truly excellent,” said Carvajal, who comes to Albany from the presidency of Bainbridge State College. “Let’s not miss opportunity by having missed an idea somewhere. Right now there are no bad ideas and there are no bad suggestions and no bad questions.

“It’s important to look at this as an opportunity as opposed to just being scared.”

Carvajal sees his role at Darton is being to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

“I think my biggest role here really is to help everybody (at Darton) get excited about what is in front of them and to do the hard work of asking what would excellence really look like,” he said. “There will be pieces of what has been in existence for years at Darton that are truly great, and we want to maintain those things and build upon them. But anyone who is working some place and is honest and asks themselves ‘is this the absolute best that exists anywhere?’ we can always find we can do it a little bit better.

“My role here will really be to challenge people to think about what does excellence look like, then going through the heavy lifting of making it happen. When people hear it framed that way, I think it becomes an exciting adventure.”

Dunning and Carvajal are tasked with creating a new inclusive Albany State University while also maintaining the university’s culture of being one of just three public HBCUs (historically black college and university) in the state of Georgia.

That perception and culture gap will be difficult to overcome on both sides of the river.

“Dr. Dunning was asked that question earlier and I was curious to hear what he had to say,” Carvajal said. “He talked about building on that (HBCU) tradition while also building an institution for today’s Albany and today’s Southwest Georgia. Much earlier in my career, I interviewed at an HBCU in West Virginia and today it is 18 percent African-American. They still very much respect and protect that tradition of why they were started and you can see it on their campus. Yet as their community changed, their mission had also changed.

“There are examples of that all across the country. I would say that what we need to do going forward is to ask what does Albany and Southwest Georgia need today? This consolidation matters to southwest Georgia as a whole because Albany is the biggest community in the region and the region’s economic driver. We are talking about creating a university with more than 9,000 students which will be the largest in the region.”

While recognizing ASU’s historic HBCU status, Carvajal said now is the time to also look to the future.

“We have to look at how we can protect the HBCU connection,” he said. “But I hope our main energies are focused on what does Albany and Southwest Georgia need today in 2015-16 and what does it need 20, 40 and 50 years from now. It’s not what was needed 60 years ago.”

Carvajal warned that change will not come easily and the results will not be immediate.

“If the process is successful, we won’t know months from now, but we’ll know in 20 years,” Carvajal said. “I hope we take advantage of this opportunity, make the most of it, and leave a solid foundation to build upon. We have to get this part right.”