 HBCU Digest Radio welcome back to our presidential series conversations with our dynamic leaders from historically black colleges and universities today we are privileged to be joined by Madam President of Central State University Dr. Cynthia Jackson Hammond who has an incredible announcement you know it's not unusual for HBCUs to get major gifts it's not unusual for HBCUs to get major support for research. It is unusual for a school to announce all three or both of them in one day from three different and distinct irreputable sources so Dr. Hammond first it is an honor to have you on again with us as a true friend of the show three big announcements on yesterday afternoon two of them philanthropic one of them research based can you just kind of walk us through this big day for CSU and thank you so very much for inviting me to be a part of the podcast and yesterday was a very exciting day for Central State University and one of our new mantra is that there's more to know about CSU though we were excited to share yesterday with a large audience about three major achievements that will certainly keep Central State University moving forward the first one was a gift of two million dollars from Mr. Frank Murphy who is a strong proponent and supporter of higher education and I met Mr. Murphy about seven years ago and he had a very powerful journey story that really resonated with many of the students that attend Central State University person who's come from very humble beginnings but did not let obstacles get in his way and went on to achieve notoriety in the field of business and and many different enterprises so seven years ago he he we started developing this relationship of this the friendship and yesterday he said he went to give the university two million dollars because he believed in our mission he saw himself in many of the students stories that we service and he wanted to be a contributor so not only was that a cash donation he's also going to build a new student support center for Central State University and that student support center is you know a five million gift just within itself and we have already begun to talk about how that building will look if it's designed with the idea of helping students just learn how to navigate and transition from from the from the high school experiences to college and then from the college experience to this very interesting world that we live in today sometimes students and people think there's just the academic experience that would carry people from one aspect of their lives to others but there are other dimensions and Mr. Murphy wants to make sure that our students had the best opportunities to have a helping hand to teach them about navigating you know the territories that they will have to just you know meander through the life so that was a wonderful secondary gift that he provided but let me just also give another shout out to Mr. Murphy he's building our new wellness center as a gift so that's three different enterprises that he is leveraging with the university our wellness center a whole exercise complex as well as our exercise science academic build program so he has been very very generous to central state university and we are so happy that he is a believer a central state university believer and you know want to help us move to the next level let me just ask you really quickly is that so you talked about this relationship kind of blossoming over seven years so is this a is this conversations that you've had with him about hey here's our strategic vision come on to the campus and see the energy that the students in the faculty provide what is what is the the the formula for getting that kind of partnership well you know uh and and believe it or not he had not been back to the campus since that that that first year that he he came here uh but we but he had um people within his company who would come to the university and would keep him apprised of our strategic plan who saw the things that we were doing for some reason he just loved central state university and the students that we served and I think it was because it was part of his his journey as well but he had you know he had people in his company who would come and sit down and talk with us for years and and talk about how they could help and so over the years they have done smaller contributions to the university provided some internships but this was the this was the coup de gras this was the peace day resistance and uh so we're just happy that he thought enough of us and he has been philanthropic with other institutions as well but I think we are the first 1890 land grant university that he he wanted to leave his mark with and you had another gift from a friend of central state um a relatively you know popular person um about business and basketball so this is magic magic johnson yeah so talk about that that gift from magic sedexo well now that that let me be clear uh last year magic johnson on his own individually contributed made a pledge of one million dollars to the university so dexo magic is one of his the company one of his companies is a kind of a separate enterprise and they are our campus catering services they are a wonderful partner to have and that they do more than just look at providing vendor services through through the catering service right now we they will be uh we have redesigned for instance our library and I always wanted to have some sort of food service in the library so they have provided that in the basement beautiful facilities because I'm thinking if students are going to study they should not have to leave the library to get uh you know something to eat if they are in deep study so they provided that then secondly uh they will be building a campus grocery store wow but it's not just a campus grocery store it would be a community grocery store because we are not in a city we are in a community and there are people in the community who should not have to travel you know 10 miles down the road to go to a grocery store so that will be a new enterprise on the campus so this will be an extension for the community to come on to campus yeah and grocery shop wow yeah absolutely and the campus is surrounded by residents you know so they can certainly come to the campus to get that bread that milk those eggs you know those fresh vegetables without you know uh a lot of inconvenience apparently uh Sodexo Magic they they have uh gifted 1.4 million dollars for us to build a new football field and track so uh we are excited about those those partnerships and when I talk about partnerships these are part and we are very selective about the partners that we give I mean that we enter into business with because it has to be more than just a a one quick commodity we want partners that are going who are going to invest in our students and best long term uh in the university and that's what Sodexo Magic has done and they have proven to be great at providing internships for our students and opportunities for the university to continue to grow that that that's beyond impressive and if that wasn't enough and in a third tier of this is a major major announcement about the the university entering into the hemp research and development arm now let me let me set the stage for folks who don't know it's only been a handful of years that central state rightly and after almost a century is designated as a land grant institution this is under your leadership uh so now there's federal designation for that there's federal money that comes for that and now that the federal government has cleared the way for college universities to enter into this this field uh for research and development and manufacturing a number of hbc's have gotten into it to their financial benefit central state is the first in Ohio correct yes to have this enterprise talk talk a little bit about what this means and how much it means not only to central state but to Ohio yes and and that's the most important thing for central state to be the research hub for this this new commodity and the commodity is really designed to help Ohio farmers look at their farming enterprise differently there are so many possibilities for the use of hemp and of course we all know the nature of hemp and medicinal purposes so outstanding researcher here we uh the the legislature the state legislature just approved the the use of research for hemp uh last i think it was last thursday we put in our application on friday and we planted seeds on this day so we were so far a whole year we have had our application ready because we know what this is going to do for increasing opportunities for Ohio farmers and for the business community and at the 1890 land grant that's what we are supposed to do enhance the quality of life not only uh from a health perspective but from an economic prosperity perspective perspective for for the sentences it allows our students to learn how to have a research opportunities in a research lab and um and so we're just going to grow this as much as we possibly can for the purpose of improving the citizenry of Ohio you know and then the final question you guys have been hbc with the year you've been president of the year for initiatives just like this uh how do you continue to find ways to set new standards for how you can expand the academic enterprise how you expand the community outreach enterprise when you've already come so far um you know most presidents will talk offline and say you know once you do some good you got to go because this is a this is a job where you know you take it to be fired but you you have taken it and you're you keep setting these new thresholds like how does that work is it a community effort is it part of a strategic plan that you had coming into the job how does this how does this keep taking positive steps well i i was fortunate to have a faculty and staff who were eager to grow and continue to grow and we often talk in in many of our forums about what what's next even if we know when we achieve something that's for that moment now you have to say okay now what's next because if you're going to be competitive in higher ed if you're going to have uh an opportunity to make a difference a sustained difference you you must continue to think about tomorrow we just had our university institute yesterday actually uh in the morning uh and the thing was growth 360 all around growth what is the issues plan so although our current strategic plan is 2020 we are setting the stage for the next strategic plan and we look at how do we engage the community what do we provide for the community and we and we have this this understanding that education is opposed to enrich not only the students that attend the university but give them the tools to enrich the communities and wish they will reside and work so our mission is very expansive very broad and we know that that we have a responsibility and that responsibility is to continue to thrive and to continue to be innovative and so that's our that's our DNA that's our vision that's our our task and so we bring to the table as many people uh from the communities from from the uh the from government from uh you know society organizations i say let's think with us let's all think together about these things and that's that's what we do