TERRY LEWIS: Art Dunning was dealt a bad hand

The morning call was unexpected and roused me from a deep sleep, but I managed to drag myself out of a comfortable bed to see who dared disturb my slumber. To my surprise, the caller was former Albany State University President Art Dunning.

It was a goodbye phone call to let me know Dunning and his wife, Karen, were heading to South Carolina. He said he was planning to do educational consulting work with the University of South Carolina and with his alma mater, the University of Alabama. Dunning also told me he had his 2018 Alabama football season tickets in hand.

“I want to have a more relaxed lifestyle,” Dunning said.

The call was a bittersweet moment for me because my five-year relationship with Dunning was a mixed bag. I wrote many articles about the consolidation of Albany State and Darton State College; some he liked, others he could not stand. But I always enjoyed his company because Art Dunning is a stand-up guy. He is genuine, and he made me think.

Still, he often drove me crazy by asking questions and seemingly ignoring the answers.

For those still unfamiliar with his time in Albany, let me refresh your memory.

Dunning was named interim president at Albany State in 2013 and named permanent president by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents in 2015. Later that same year, the BOR approved the consolidation of Albany State University and Darton State College, a transition that can best be described as rocky.

Enrollment at both campuses fell, and friction was evident within and among both schools’ faculties. Dunning also never got the complete community buy-in he so desperately sought. He announced his retirement in October of last year, and the USG moved quickly in to attempt to right the ship by bringing in USG staffers.

The situation was so dire that new Chancellor Steve Wrigley named USG Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Marion Fedrick as interim president. If you read between the lines, it’s apparent where Wrigley thinks the problem lies.

The truth is the merger of Albany State, an HBCU (historically black college or university) and what the community perceived as a PWI (primarily white institution) was not well-thought-out by former USG Chancellor Hank Huckaby. In fact, I call the decision to consolidate the two schools “Huckaby’s Folly.”

Dunning was charged with bridging the racial gap and given the Sisyphean task of rolling that rock up the hill. It was a task that would frustrate Dunning until the day he retired from Albany State.

The truth is the current situation is little different now than when the consolidation became official on Jan. 1 2017. There is no shame in failure; the shame is in not trying at all. Art Dunning tried to bring the community together but could never quite pull it off.

“Some of the people who were most vocal about (the consolidation) have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo,” he said.

So the ball is now in the hands of the USG and BOR, and no one seems quite sure how to fix the mess Huckaby created. ASU is now effectively a ward of the USG. A wise educator once told me you can judge the health of an institution by the number of interim administrators on the payroll. Albany State has at least three interim administrators.

No one knows what the future holds for Albany State University, or if there is an end game for this grand social experiment. Right now, the only certainty is that Art Dunning no longer has to worry about it.

Email Terry Lewis at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Lewis.