DR. GLENDA GLOVER, LIFE AFTER AN HBCU PRESIDENCY
BY YOLANDA McCUTCHEN
I n 2012, Dr. Glenda Glover was serving as the Dean of the College of Business at Jackson State University when she was approached by several alumni urging her to consider becoming the next president of Tennessee State University (TSU). Although Glover is an alumna of TSU initially, she was reluctant; she had another career aspiration in mind, “It was my hope to enter the corporate world and to run a Fortune 500 company, higher education was not my only goal.” However, the opportunity to lead her alma mater was too appealing to ignore; and in 2013, she became the eighth president
and the first woman to hold the presidency of TSU.
One of Glover’s goals for the university was to enhance TSU’s national profile. “Every president is a fundraiser. That was my skillset, to be able to raise funds for the university,” said Glover. She leveraged her relationships within the national corporate community, which resulted in the university receiving donations and/or forming partnerships with Amazon, Federal Express, Apple, Bank of America, Pinnacle Financial Partners, Microsoft and the Boeing Company. Glover stated that TSU received a half million dollars or more from all of the aforementioned companies.
In the university’s announcement of her retirement, it reported that during Glover’s tenure TSU increased grant funding reaching $100 million in 2023, the endowment doubled to more than $100 million, it was the first HBCU to establish a national technology and innovation center, and experienced record enrollment increases. “I’m glad to say that I put TSU first. As much as I love my alma mater, as much fun as we were having, and all the good things that were happening, I recognized that I couldn’t function in an environment where the support at
Glover was TSU’s president for 11 years before retiring from the position at the end of the spring 2024 semester. When asked to reflect on her accomplishments at TSU, without hesitation Glover said, “My biggest achievement was the students. As the students come across the stage every year and graduate, that’s always a big achievement for me because it means more young African American professionals are ready for a competitive global marketplace. That’s the best, output a president can receive.”
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