Dr. Glenell M. Lee-Pruitt Leads JARVIS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY INTO ITS NEXT CHAPTER BY DR. JAMAL WATSON
On a rural stretch of East Texas highway, where 1,000 acres of piney woods surround a campus most locals admit they had never bothered to visit, Dr. Glenell M. Lee-Pruitt is trying to change what it means to lead a small historically Black college, not by chasing the size or spectacle of bigger institutions, but by doubling down on what she calls the “secret sauce” of a school that has quietly educated students in Wood County for 115 years.
“I congratulate, but I don't imitate,” Lee-Pruitt said in a recent interview with The HBCU Times, reflecting on her approach to leading Jarvis Christian University, which transitioned from college to university status in 2022. “We're not a monolith of HBCUs. We all are here for a specific purpose that we meet individually.” That philosophy has come to define Lee-Pruitt’s presidency as she enters her fourth year at the helm of the 115-year- old institution, one of the smallest four- year HBCUs in the country. Where some of her counterparts chase enrollment growth into the thousands, Lee-Pruitt has set her sights on a number that might surprise outsiders: 800 students. “If we get to 800 students, I think that's a sweet spot," she said. “We are not a big institution; that's not in our DNA.” FROM PROVOST TO PRESIDENT Lee-Pruitt's ascension to Jarvis’s top office was, by her own account, both expected and disorienting. She had spent more than a decade as provost and vice president for academic affairs, sitting in cabinet meetings and board sessions, absorbing the rhythms of institutional leadership long before she took the president's chair on July 1,
2023, succeeding Dr. Lester C. Newman after his 11-year tenure. She became the university's 13th president, and only its second woman to hold the role, following Dr. Sabetha Lee Jenkins, who led Jarvis from 1991 to 2008. Still, nothing fully prepared her for the view from the top. “Although you may be at the table, that does not necessarily mean that you are aware of all of the details, aware of everything that is happening around you,” Lee-Pruitt reflected. As provost, her focus had been narrower: academic programs, faculty affairs. As president, she said, she has had to know a little about all aspects of the institution. What eased the transition, she said, was familiarity. She already knew the board, the faculty, the staff—and they knew her. “It was not them having to learn anyone,” she said. When Jarvis's board of trustees named her the university’s designated presidential candidate in 2023, Board Chairman Torry Edwards praised the transition committee process that identified her, expressing full confidence in the recommendation that would come before the full board.
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