 HBCU Dutchess, welcome back, and we are privileged to be joined by probably one of the more busy HBCU presidents in the sector today. If you don't see him on Instagram in various travels, you see in these cats making major announcements that Edward Waters University, now Edward Waters University, you got to get the name right, and President A. Zachary Faison. So brother, it's a pleasure to have you back. First of all, let me ask you this question. Is anybody, and I'm being serious when I ask this, is anybody sick of y'all making announcements all the time? Like major announcements? It's because y'all the cram like five years of announcements into like, into like a summer, you know what I mean? Like so, like what has been the reaction, and if anybody's saying they're like, yo, y'all need to space some of this out. Listen, it's been overwhelmingly positive, overwhelmingly positive. I will say, folks have kind of reiterated what you said, y'all have had about five years of announcements and like the span of like three or four months, but that's because we've been grinding. Right. Our team has been grinding planting seeds and we just blessed it. Some of those seeds are growing now and we're able to reap some harvest, a lot of hard work that's gone on over the past few years. So let's run down some of the list. Funding, historic funding from the state of Florida. Absolutely. University status, joining the NCAA division to new construction, seemingly all over the place. Absolutely. How many of these things were coming in with your administration and new vision and how many of these things are being carried over from a previous administration? And I think that's a critical question for folks who want to understand HBCU leadership and the natural progression of things. How much of this is you and your team and how much of this is you saying, hey, here's some stuff they had cooking. We're just going to bring it to fruition now. Right. Let me say it kind of as a caveat, I'm the 30th president of Edward Waters College and the first president of Edward Waters University. So before I answer that question directly, I think I'd be remiss to not be able to give honor and do where it's due. There were 29 presidents that came before me and certainly all of them have built upon the last person and certainly I built upon my predecessor and all those that came before me. But I can be honest and share that everything that you've shared was this administration, our vision and our work towards putting these things in place and seeing them through for them to come to fruition. When I came to Edward Waters, we were in some pretty difficult financial straits. I'll just share with you and I tell this story to a lot of aspirant presidents. No shade to boards or trustees or what have you, but often when you're in that process of maybe aspiring toward the presidency, you've got stars in your eyes and you may think you're doing your due diligence and I think I did my due diligence as well but the board did it as well and you're not going to know everything until you get there. That's just part of what it goes. I think boards can be as transparent as they possibly can and sometimes the boards don't even know to the extent of what's going on at the institution. But nevertheless, when I came to Edward Waters, unbeknownst to I think a lot of folks and even unbeknownst to me, we had suffered through over a decade how it is we've made it, I think it's because of our African myth that it's a Piscopo progeny and the good Lord has been looking out for a long, long, long time, but we had over a decade of operating net cash deficits. In other words, we cash poor. We get to the end of the fiscal year and we're having to go into lines of credit. We don't have the dollars to pay our bills. So when I came on in July of 2018, I'll never forget. This was right before HBCU weeks. I've been there maybe two months, of course, HBCU weeks, always in September. And my CFO calls me and says, Mr. President, we got an issue. I said, what's the issue? I'm new president thinking everything. This is a honeymoon period. We're going to have a bit of a task making payroll this month. Excuse me? Say what? Yeah, well, I thought you knew. You know, we had some cash flow problems here at the institution. I said, no, no, I wasn't aware. This is a part of my exploration that I was getting to that. But I certainly wasn't expecting to be 60 days in and to find out that that's kind of where we were. So I think that to your question, my predecessors had a lot of great ideas and a lot of vision. But one of the things that I gleaned from one of my mentors, Dr. Charlie Nelms, when he said to me, when I participated in MLI, he was one of our facilitators. And it's something that I always used to this day. And he said to me, he said, young man, a vision without provision, ain't nothing but an illusion. So you can have all this vision in the world. But if the resources aren't there, you're just playing games. And so pursuant to that, we kind of shifted gears. I had a lot of plans in terms of what it was that we were endeavoring to do as a new administration. But it became incumbent that we focused on finances immediately. And so we began to put together some things. I think it was really a combination of really looking at what we can do from an enrollment management perspective. We had to grow enrollment and we had to grow it immediately. We had to do something with regard to our debt to try to generate some cash, get rid of this debt and generate some cash. And then we had to really look inward and see how it was that we could be more philanthropic in our fundraising. It really was those three things combined. And we were successful in that. We've grown our enrollment every year. We had our highest enrollment ever last fall. Coming into this coming fall, we'll look to have our highest enrollment in over 20 years. All of our applications are up, except this is a rub. We've got over almost 600 new deposits for students before it will water as an institution. It's a small private. That's unprecedented for us. Talk about the balance in achieving that. Because you look at a lot of institutions public, but mostly private. There are some that face similar circumstances and we just don't know it. So for you to be so transparent, I think it's a breath of fresh air. But can you talk about how do you balance the fact like, OK, there are some areas where we need to cut costs. And there are some areas where we need to invest in order to make more money. How does a president CEO sit at that seat and say, here's where we got to retract. And here's where we got to get bigger, even though we might have some lean times, but there will be surplus at the end. Well, I said that coming in the door. I was very forthright and transparent with our faculty, with our staff, and with the board. And, hey, from my perspective, my background is in enrollment management and also in fundraising and development. And I said to them coming in, I said I'm going to put initially the money in the what I call the resource making, or resource producing, at least initially, the resource producing areas of the institution. It's not to say our faculty don't write grants and produce resources, but we need an immediate influx of cash. And so we had to really look at our enrollment management function and how can we invest in that area in a way that we can realize some fairly immediate returns in terms of being able to increase our enrollment. That's a small private. That's where we're going to get the bulk of our financial support from is growing enrollment. And then second to that was really being very intentional around developing or investing in our fundraising and development arm. And then also, I also believe in doing business. If I do business with you, I expect you to do business with me. So for example, if I've got a vendor, and this really just comes from my development background, I've got vendors that were at our institution. I won't name any names, but they've been doing business with us for 15, 20 years. Then I go through the annual fund, the major gift. They're not there, all right? So I had a real, what my grandma said, come to Jesus conversation. Look, I see that you've been a vendor of ours for 15 years. And in that time, we've generated X millions plural of dollars for you, OK? And I don't see you as ever having given either a dime or not one single major gift. That's a problem. And so I got to do like Jay-Z said, I got to get you for the code, what you did to the code crush. So you have to pay up now. I mean, it's funny, but that was the real conversation. Were they easy conversations to have? Not that they would be difficult because you're a client, but were they warm and receptive and say, yeah, we'll get it done. I think, to be honest, most of them were. When you put the data in front of them and you say, listen, I mean, you've generated $20 million of revenue from this institution. And I don't have you having given $10. It really, in some ways, it was an embarrassing conversation for them. In other ways, I think it was revealing for me and my staff because reflexively, some of them said, but you know what, we've never been asked. And that was something that was sobering as well. And so, but hearing that, we said, well, we're asking now. And fortunately, we were at our precipice in a number of our vendor relationships where we were up for renewal. And so we talked about, exactly, we had some leverage. So I'll name one just because this was a positive one. Follett. Follett is a company that does work with a number of our HBCUs. And it was a very great, great, great conversation. Their CEO, Ro McFarland, came down. We had dinner. And what came out of that was a new deal where every first time in College Edward Waters University student is given a brand new laptop computer full with Microsoft Office Suite and the whole nine. Also having something where we're getting a higher percentage of the sales and investment annually into our scholarship dollars for to support our students. So it's those kinds of conversations. And so again, when you have four or five of those that also want to invest in some capital investment, helping us to improve the learning and living experience on our campus, that was truly, truly transformational. And I'll tell you one more thing that really, really, really changed the fortunes for us from a financial perspective. Like I said, we had gone over a decade and had not closed the fiscal year in the black for over a decade. And our partnership with the Reinvestment Fund, which is based out of Philadelphia, but they have an Atlanta office. They've worked with some other HBCUs. And I heard about some of the work that they had done with some other small private HBCUs, but they came in and this was before we really had anything that we could demonstrate, but we shared with them what our vision was, we shared with them, not just the vision, but some of the strategic and at that time intentional steps we were taking to really bring that vision to fruition. And they bought it. They bought it. They came in, refinanced our debt for us. And in that refinance, we were able to generate millions of dollars of upfront cash to pay off all these accounts, payables that had been just piling on top one over another year after a year. We were able to pay all those off and generate upfront cash. And so we were able to finish fiscal year 20 with our first year in surplus in 15, 16 years. So all of that really combined. And then again, enrollment increasing, fundraising, being able to refinance our debt, all those things combined to really put us in a place and a whole new place from a financial perspective. Historians will look back 20, 30, 40 years from now and say 2020, 2021 were propitious years for HBCUs. We never had so much coverage, never had so much philanthropy or collective philanthropy. But is that a little misleading, particularly from your perspective of a smaller private institution that is very much in the orbit of Florida schools but not in the top tier when you say, hey, what are the top HBCUs or what are the HBCUs that everybody all over the country knows? Is that concept a little misleading that HBCUs are doing well? I mean, we're keeping pace, but would you say that it's not as good as we think it is or would you say it is as good as you see it? Well, I think from a philanthropic perspective, those that were recipients of the McKinsey funds and other donations and dollars that certainly shed a positive light on HBCUs as a sector and on the whole. I think that's uncontroverted. I have nothing against those institutions. I tell people this all the time. So I'm giving this caveat before I get into my answer. My mother, I'll use one. My mother's a Spelman graduate. My sister's a Spelman graduate. All the women on my mother's side of the family are all Spelmanites, okay? So I have nothing against those institutions. And they're well-deserved for the dollars that they have received. I mean, for years have produced excellent products. But with that said, I have been one that has been disappointed that other HBCUs like Edward Waters, I'll just stay with the AME institutions, Edward Waters, Paul Quinn, Allen University and others have not been recipients of those kinds of dollars. Namely, and I just have to shout out the AME schools because you're talking about schools that never capitulated from a cultural perspective. They were founded by black folks, run by black folks and say whatever you want to say, this may be a bit controversial, but they did not cede authority. They did not cede power to white power structure. And in many respects, they've paid a price for that. I've always said let's have an honest conversation about it. I don't necessarily believe that those institutions that were recipients of Mackenzie dollars or whatever dollars that they're just some, they own some market share on administrative capacity. Although they produce extraordinarily, an extraordinarily high level, well, they produce at that level in large part. I mean, if I had a $400 million endowment, I think I could produce too. I'm just keeping it all the way real, you know? And so, you know, I think we make a mistake. And I think in the sector, we make a mistake to assume that those institutions are doing something above and beyond what sort of yes or no institutions are, you know, and I may get in trouble for saying this, but it's simply their proximity to white wealth. I mean, let's just talk about it. Like I said, their proximity to white wealth, let's look at their founding. Let's look at the Rockefellers. Let's look at the Carnegie's that founded these institutions. It's not that they, you know, have some, you know, magic potion that they poured that, you know, I would put my administrators, I'd put my faculty, I'd put my staff up against anyone else. But again, we're founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church and we have not ceded authority. We have not ceded or traded our social mores or our cultural mores for proximity to wealth. And there are choices to be made in that regard, but you know, as I look at prospective donors, particularly African-American ones, I think the AME schools have a particularly rich history, Wilbur Forest University, Edward Waters. These are institutions that again, are founded by us, run by us and still run by us. When some of those, I won't name any of them directly, but some of those other institutions, look at their boards of trustees. They're not run by us. Well, is there a case to be made that that, as you said, sometimes there's a choice in that, but is there a case to be made that could there be, and I guess the best way to put it is gaps in the service. In other words, if you are supported and founded by the Black Church, where is the Black Church? Now, a lot of people don't know that the AME Church and the Episcopal Church, all those are giving money to HBCUs, because you don't see big check presentations. You don't see presentations at church conference and say, here's what we're gonna do for Black colleges. But is it to say the church then has an obligation to say, well, we got to stand in the gap. We have to do more philanthropically. Would you make that case? Absolutely, I think the church has a responsibility to stand in the gap. But I think that, and I know, being president of Edward Waters, the AME Church is our largest giver. They're our biggest donor. It goes without saying, we would not survive were it not for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. So I think that the AME Church is doing their part. Certainly, could they do more? Absolutely, but I'm pleased and I've been really, to be honest with you, pleasantly surprised when I took the helm to just see how much financial support the church does give our institutions. And so I think the bigger question is, when do we as Black folk, Black church folk, Black business folk, HBCU folk, get behind the institutions that were founded again by us, for us, have not capitulated, have not ceded authority to other folks because of their proximity to well. So it comes to that larger question then, because to your point, there is a reality. It's like, okay, well, but white folks, the ones that's got the money. Who got the money, right? Right, so what are you gonna do, right? So it gets to that whole notion of reparative justice. When we talk about the whole notion of reparations and there's a move right now for reparations and what that looks like. And we talk about really wanting to make whole those institutions in our community that have long since suffered from economic discrimination. I think you've gotta talk about HBCUs. And at the top of that list, I think you gotta talk about the AME and CME institutions because these institutions, again, have not been supported at a comparative level in large part because they would not cede authority. They would not cede seats. They said, no, we've founded this and we're gonna continue to own it and run it. Had, I would argue, had the Edward Waters and the Wilbur forces and the Paul Quinn's, 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago, ceded over authority of their institutions to white philanthropists. These institutions might be amongst the more wealthier institutions, but they said, these are ours. We're gonna continue to run them. We're gonna continue to own them. And I don't think that they should be shunned for that. I think that they should be roundly applauded in our space for keeping these institutions a part of our culture. It's a very fascinating conversation because it feels like, and what you're saying has so much legitimacy, but at some point, there are some economic and there are some political realities, right? If all of our schools or the majority of our schools are based in the South and many in the deep South, there are some calculations you have to make. Politically, part of that whole era with George Floyd and coronavirus was a presidential election. We saw the GOP have some significant overtures to black colleges. Edward Waters was a beneficiary of that, Bethlehem Cookman, Lord A&M. So do you put that in the same vein where lawmakers say, okay, we wanna look good for an electorate. We wanna look good for an election. Let's slide you some of these resources you've been looking for for a long time that has been long overdue. Is that capitulation in your end or is that just fair brokering in the marketplace or the political arena to get what you need to sustain your institution? Well, I think that's a great question. I think in some respects, it is capitulation. I'll be honest, it is, you gotta do what's politically expedient often to keep your institution running. Hey, I'm hired to keep Edward Waters not just running but keep it thriving. And so, I'll be honest with you, when you talk about Florida, there are those amongst my alumni base, amongst my students that are not supporters of our governor. Okay, now that's not a secret. But from a funding perspective, the fact that our governor and our state legislature supported by our governor, at least I have to give credit to the legislature, but certainly supported by our governor, he could have vetoed it, gave historic funding to the private HBCUs in Florida. That means something. From a political perspective, it certainly exerts, I don't know if pressure is the word, but it certainly execs some political nuance in how it is that we can respond or we should respond when there are political issues that come to the forefront in our state. It limits us in some ways, but I've always said this, I say to my alums, I say to students, at one time, we weren't so heavily dependent upon white wealth. When we weren't, we could speak truth to power. So free me, free your presidents, I say this for a number of HBCU leaders, free them to be able to speak truth to power by allowing us the space to not be so heavily dependent upon this political party or this political structure. Let us depend on our own folk, and then we can be those voices that can speak freely and speak more directly without reservation. When it goes- Do you think people get it? Do you think people understand that? Because the L's that you take, the L's that so many other presidents take when they have to do an event with a governor who's unpopular, politically unpopular, and they make it seem like, oh, you know, doctors such and such sold out, but they don't see that. So how do you make that, how do you do the convincing for people to say, this is what you have to do to compete and survive in some cases? I think you just have to keep saying it. Interestingly enough, back in February, Edward Waters was the first institution, public or private, to have a COVID-19 vaccination site. And our governor came down and did an announcement and folks were mad. He's got the governor on the campus, da-da-da, Faizana sold out. He needs to be careful who he stands next to. And I'm like, all right, but at the same time, recognize that we got the very first COVID vaccination site on the Edward Waters campus which sits right in the heart of the black community in Jacksonville, which this virus is disproportionately impacted. Again, hey, you know, whether you want me to stand next to our governor or not, you know, you can make that argument, but are you showing up? Are you bringing me vaccination resources? Are you, so either bringing me the resources that allow me to be able to make that distinction and not have to stand next to fill in the blank, whoever. So, you know, I think, you know, we've got to take some ownership and I can say that as an HBCU alum, not just the president that, you know, I've got to do my part in helping my president of my alma mater to speak with autonomy and really be able to advocate in a way that that's not as politically tinged. But, you know, it certainly is a highly charged political environment. So it's a tough environment to navigate. Talk about the identity as a young president, right? So a lot of people don't realize that you kind of grew up as you mentioned, your Georgia boy went to Albany. You've done significant roles in leadership at Virginia Union, at Tuskegee. So you've been in some places that are like steeped in strict and conservative HBCU culture. And yet you all over Instagram, you go rap lyrics, you ranting and raving at the basketball game. So, you know, there is a notion of here is the future of HBCU leadership. And yet there is training in the tradition, in the sound tradition at that. How do you navigate both of those worlds? Because there is something that like 21st century student and alumnus expects. And then there is something that a graduate or a board member or faculty or community members say, nah, bro, you're doing a lot. So how do you walk the fine line? To be honest with you, it's something that I am still figuring out. I'll be honest with you. My approach has always been to just be authentically me. I'm a child of the 90s. I like trap, but I love John Peaky, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, you're right. I mean, I've served at some institutions that certainly have a conservative bend. Would that be from a religious perspective, whether it be from just their place and historicity in the HBCU space like a Tuskegee? But I found that I just have to be me, you know what I mean? And I do think that certainly you have to be aware of the culture of the institution where you are. Again, I'm at an AME institution now. The chair of our board is the Bishop of the 11th district and a great majority of the persons that serve on our board are members of the cloth. And so certainly that comes with certain realities. But I knew that when I took the job. And so I think, you know, as any president, you have to do your due diligence and make sure that you're matching who you are with who that institution is. You know, I'm staunchly a Christian. I staunchly love and what we call the name of Jesus. You know, pay and lay hands on these students when we got to do that. And so, you know, being a younger president, you know, it certainly comes, you got to prove yourself. You know, we didn't do a, we weren't nearly as active on Instagram with a lot of stuff at the beginning because we didn't have anything. We could say that we had done, but not that we've done some things. And probably that was by necessity. I don't have the big marketing budgets like some of my other institutions. And so I said, well, hey, you know, as a millennial president, I know how to use this Instagram, I know how to use this Facebook, I know how to use this TikTok, I know how to use this Twitter, I know how to use this LinkedIn, and those are free. So I'm gonna get our brand out there. I'm gonna get our message out there as best we can using these platforms because also that's where the students are. Again, our focus was wanting to grow enrollment. And I knew that the students are on TikTok. They're on Instagram. So if we get our brand popping, as they say on Instagram, and get students to start paying attention to what's going on at Water's University, hey, that's a win. That's a win. And I think our board understands that. I'm appreciative of a board that gives me space to be me. And as long as I'm representing our institution in a way that they can be proud of, thus far we haven't had any issues, praise God. Let's talk about that brand. So what you've noticed in recent years is that Everett Waters is drawing ever closer to identifying with Jacksonville, the city, right? How was that possible? How does that get done? Because there are a lot of HBCUs where they're synonymous with their city. And you're kind of in the process of developing that. What has that taken? What does it mean to you? I think for us it was first really carving out our niche with regard to that we have positive things going on at our institution. It was really, and that's not something that I think is new pursuant to my onboarding. Everett Waters has always had been producing at a high level. But it often, we don't tell our stories in the way that we should. So you talked about developing relationships and making sure your brand is out there from a social media perspective. You can't, and I get on my team all the time. I said, there's no way that y'all should be on social media more than me. And they're like, but praise you on social media. I was like, I got my phone with me everywhere I go. So I'm gonna always be on social media. So I found that the city of Jacksonville, our mayor, for example, I connected with our mayor via Twitter. That's how I first had my foray with our mayor. You know, all of the different entities here in Jacksonville, it really has been us really, again, making sure that folks knew we were here and beginning to tell our story when we had positive developments. When we came through our fifth year report with no issues. Hey, we had a party. We made sure everyone in Jacksonville and everyone throughout the state knew that Edward Waters, despite what you may have heard in the space about HBCUs and accreditation, that Edward Waters came through its fifth year interim report with SAC-COC with flying colors. Let folks know that when we were approved for the Carnegie level change from, you know, bachelor's to master's and became Edward Waters University. We had that in front of every media in the state, throughout the country. So it's touting, you know, touting what you're doing and make sure that you're sounding the alarm when you have positive developments moving from NAIA to NCAA Division II. It's major for us. We just, SIC just announced yesterday, we've got three games next year, football games on national television, ESPNU. So, you know, and I think that when Jacksonville has begun to see the momentum, folks wanna be a part of a winner. Folks wanna be associated with success. And so again, our focus was let's make sure that we are incubating success. And we felt like it's been proven true that when we produce the success, when we produce the high results, people are gonna wanna be associated with it. And certainly that's what we're seeing now in terms of our relationship between us and the city of Jacksonville and our whole first coach region. This might be an unfair question to put at your feet, but I will, cause I'm messy like that. So, one of the things that we kind of foresaw at the outset of COVID is that even if this thing starts to draw down and we're seeing the end of the tunnel, which we're not, that there were gonna be some presence that say, you know what, I've had enough. Yeah. I didn't see that coming. This is crazy. I'm gone. I was gonna tell you batting like 400. You batting like, I looked at it earlier today, right? You batting like 400 already. I'm like, is this dude, is this one? Don't tell people I call some names out. You batting like 400. I'm like, dang it. And we ain't even, that was like three months ago. You grow down, right? So what I'm saying is there are some people who said, COVID is crazy. I'm not doing this another year. There are some people who are looking at enrollment data. They're looking at, you know, funding metrics and they're saying, you know what, let me get up out of here before somebody blames me for this. There were some trends that were just on a downward trajectory and people saw it and they're saying, I'm gonna accomplish a few things and then I'm gonna get out of here. And then you got some folks who are just, who've been in the field for a long time and they're just saying, hey, you know, I've done 10, 15 years, my time is up. Do you think that the sector, especially when lay people look at it, that they look like, yo man, something I thought we were doing well, but all these presidents are leaving for various reasons, but all these presidents are leaving. Is that, how do you kind of explain it from the seat itself? And how would you tell people to respond to it or how people say, hey, chill out, we're okay. Or how would you best explain it to folks about these leadership transitions that are seen to be picking up in pace? Well, you know, I think that's a great, great question. I will say first, these jobs are tough. These jobs are incredibly, incredibly tough. I remember there was an article that you wrote some years ago that I thought was just so poignant. This was, I was a vice president about the fact that how do you, it was something to this effect, you may be able to help me, but how do you run an institution or run any organization where, you know, the folks external don't support, the folks internal support, your product is difficult to be sold. You're hurting for resources in every area. Who wants that job, right? I think you remember that you wrote some op-ed that I mean, it was, it was so unpointed. Who wants that job? So I think that you're seeing a lot of transition right now in large part, I will say, and I've spoken to some of my mentors who have been presidents for 15, 20 years and have said that this past year and a year and a half was the most challenging, toughest 18, 24 months going on now of their entire career. They were already, you know, thinking about it, but this hastened their readiness to let this thing go because it has been unprecedented. It's been unprecedented. I mean, the amount of transition of dynamic change, you know, worrying about, you know, first of all, your own health and safety, the health and safety of your faculty, your staff, your students, you've got faculty and staff who have been impacted by this virus. You may have had folks in your own family that have been impacted by this virus. And at the same time, you've got an entire institution on your shoulders to have to go immediately to shutting down a campus in the spring coming into the fall and you're already, you know, teetering from a financial perspective and you're a small private and you're like, I can't reopen and I know my enrollment's gonna tank if I don't reopen. And you're faced with that reality. You know, I think a lot of folks are just saying, hey, I've had my field. This took the last remnants of juice that I had for this, it's taken it away. I'm not a pessimist though. I do think that there are, I have to think this, that there are emerging leaders in the pipeline that, you know, I think that certainly health and others, you know, I'm always an advocate for those young emerging leaders. I was, you know, I can still consider myself one and I certainly was one that folks would have said, oh, he's too young, he's 37 years old. You know, it ain't his time. He needs another 20 years before, you know, he should be tapped to lead an institution. And I carried that with me. I carried that with me to this day because, you know, I'm cognizant of the fact that Edward Waters gave me an opportunity. And basically, you know, I've said to myself, whether it's true or not, if I mess this up, I'm messing it up for the next 37, 38 year old that wants an opportunity that an HBCU might think about tapping now because they've seen, you know, what, you know, the next generation of HBCU presidents can produce if given the opportunity. And so, you know, that's what I'm encouraged by is that I really think that there is a lot of untapped talent at the vice president level and in other levels around our institutions, but our boards have got to be bold enough to give these young folks a chance because I think we'll rise to the occasion and really, really be able to steer our institutions through what even is unprecedented, unprecedentedly difficult times. What's the thing that you're most optimistic about with so much that has happened at EWU and so many things of which to be proud? What are you most excited about or most optimistic about even with challenges and triumphs or like looking ahead to the fall, there's a few weeks away, the academic year in full, what are you most excited about? I'm excited about continued growth. You know, I know what the data says. I know that HBCUs over the past few years, particularly since the Obama administration, I won't go into that though, but I've got my, I won't even go there tonight. You know what, everywhere else, brother, you might as well. Yeah, we've lost, you know, tens of thousands of students, but I really believe that with the right leadership and with the right strategic focus that our institutions can grow. You know, again, my institution has grown every year. Since I've been here, we were one of only six private HBCUs in the UNCF, out of 37 UNCF institutions to actually see growth during the pandemic. We saw 6%, excuse me, 4% growth last year. Right now I'm tracking it probably about 8% growth this year. And this is little old Edward Waters. And so again, I think it starts with leadership. I'm also encouraged by the fact that I see a renewed interest amongst aspirant parents in HBCUs, I think coming off of George Floyd, I think coming out of, you know, the political climate, parents are looking for spaces where their students will not be in places where they're just tolerated, but when they're celebrated and where they can see that these students are experiencing success. You know, I have conversations with parents all the time that are considering PWIs and nothing wrong with the PWI. I have a degree from a PWI, but I have conversations that say, well, I want my son to be an engineer. I want my son to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a teacher. And when I'm able to give them the DOE statistics about the percentage of African-American judges, the percentage of African-American engineers, the percentage of African-American pharmacists, the percentage of, you fill in whatever blank teachers that come from HBCUs, that without HBCUs, these professionals literally do not exist. And so, you know, there's demonstrable evidence that if your pathway for your child is wanting for them to become, you know, this professional, that HBCUs are the overwhelmingly primary pathway to achieving career and personal success. And so, again, I'm animated and encouraged by the fact that we still hold that space. That has not been overtaken. And so, again, I think that's a message that resonates and it's a message that I'm seeing, at least as it relates to Edward Waters, is buttressing tremendous and unprecedented growth