 A great honor to be joined this morning by one of our distinguished HBCU presidents. He is Dr. Quinton Ross, a proud alumnus and now the campus CEO of Alabama State University. Brother Ross, it is an honor seriously to have you on. I've been chasing you for years. I've been ducking you for years and we finally got you on. In the midst of board meeting at that. That's right. So I appreciate you making time, especially during this hectic time. First, congratulations on all the success. As an alumnus, as someone who's served in state legislature, as someone who's been a proud benefactor of the institution, what is it like to look back over this period so far and say, what I set out to do, it appears that you've done it, you've achieved it. Even though there's more to go, there are things that you've done. What is that feeling like for you? Well, Jeff, first of all, let me thank you. It's so good to see you and I just wanna thank you for all the wonderful work and journalism and reporting that you do for HBCUs across the country. And so it's always good to be with you. And we have this ongoing joke. I had your colors on the day. But we don't have no choice. But listen, October 3rd will be four years that I've been at the institution. I stepped away and resigned from the state legislature in October of 2017. And being on this journey, it truly has been phenomenal. I tell people all the time that basically when grace and mercy, they collide, that's called favor. And favor has surely been shown on Alabama State University. We've been on a long journey. And we talk about the things that we've been able to accomplish. I walked through the door in October after school had already been started and enrollments have been declining across the country. But even with all that Alabama State University had been through, our enrollments were declining. And now we're happy to report that we have sustained and stopped the bleeding of enrollment loss and stabilized it. But also more importantly, try to clear up and frame up those areas where we have had lost retention for our students. Students have been leaving the institution by particularly our freshmen, right? We were losing like 31% of our freshmen when I walked through the door by the next semester. And so really working across campus, breaking down silos, getting everyone to work together, we have been able to improve our retention rate of our freshmen. I mean, when you talk about the retention rate in returning students, we have gone up to about 70%. We talk about that. People look at numbers and say, well, how many students do you have? But really you can have as many students as you want. But if they're not being retained, not persisting and completing, it really means nothing. We just have a revolving door. So we've been able to focus in on that and we're excited about that. I also walked in when Alabama State University was under review for SAC-CLC, the 10-year review. A lot of people didn't think we could do it, but we did it. Matter of fact, we probably were one of the first institutions that went through SAC's review virtually because of COVID. And so we're hopeful in December, it's December convening that Alabama State University will be reaffirmed for another 10 years. And that's major. And but even through that process, bringing people out the silos who probably had never been a part of the process, putting them together and understanding that it takes all of us to move the university, we were successful through that process. We have a phenomenal QEP program, our students' first year success, journey to first year success that has been implemented and we're kicking off here. We also just announced a few weeks ago, we unveiled our focus 2030, which is a new strategic plan for the institution. The institutional organization has to have a map in terms of where it wants to go. Fiscally, we came in, of course, on very shaky fiscal ground here at Alabama State University, but I'm proud to report today that we're probably in the best fiscal condition that we've been in for a long time here at Alabama State University. And that was because we came in with the idea that we were gonna analyze the overall academic enterprise, we were gonna cut where we could, we were gonna restructuring some areas. And so doing that, that helped us to accomplish the goal of stability. But not only that, taking the money that was given by the legislature and making sure that we used it appropriately, we were able to secure extra funding, which is not an easy feat. You just don't get extra money. You have to work with your legislators and people, the relationships that you have to do that. And so by us being able to do that, we've been able to manage real well. Now, COVID struck and one of the first things that I did when I came in as president now was went to the HP, in the first two months, went to the HPCU Capital Refinance Program, because what I wanted to do, I didn't want to build anything. I didn't want, I wanted to get the debt that we had under control. You find that. Because we had debt that was all over the place, meaning we had bonds that the rates were varying from 6% to 7%. We had bonds that could have been called at any day for five or $10 million that the university just didn't have. So with the help of my team here and the help of the board, we were able to have about $148 million worth of our debt refinanced on campus, which was excluding the new stadium that we had built. So we still had that outstanding debt. But again, when you talk about how things happen and you look for the silver lining, silver lining in a bad situation, working through COVID and working through our federal lobbyists and working in conjunction with TMC and UNCF, we were on the front lines pushing for while they were giving deferment, but we were on the front lines pushing for that forgiveness piece. And of course, you know that 40 institutions were able to have their debt forgiven, but you had to have participated in the HBCU Capital Finance Board. Only God would have known that when we went to the HBCU in October of 2017. That made you eligible for it, right? Right, that we would have been eligible for it. But get this. We were probably one of the only institutions that refinanced debt. So what that did for us, it cleared away all hundred and, I think it was about 130, 31 or 32 million. So the only thing that we owe on this campus now is our stadium, right? So we're probably 52 and any stadium related items. So I think we're probably about 52 or 53 million, right? Which gives us a focus to say, okay, well, now let's see about refinancing our stadium. Because what we wanna do is put ourselves on level, even funding so that we can look at the growth that we'd like to see through the institution when you talk about the deferred maintenance that we have on campus, when you talk about housing that we need on campus. So now we can breathe, right? Because we have removed that debt thanks to the federal government and their work, all of our congressmen are representatives here from the state of Alabama. So we have been truly blessed. And listen, you walk into COVID, I cannot say enough about my leadership team, my students, the faculty and the staff. Because when COVID hit, no one knew what it was, what was gonna take place. But what I do know is that when we determined that it was something and one of the most difficult decisions I had to make as president was to send our students home. In the midst of, people were going home for spring break. But I can remember sitting around our conference table, and that was the last time that we sat around my leadership conference table. We met every Tuesday and making the decision. But we had healthcare professionals that were at our meeting. We had those who were dealing with the federal government and they were watching on an iPad your state by state, the number of cases that were ticking up. And so at that time, Alabama hadn't reported any cases. That was the day before. And so, and I asked the nurse, I said, well, why don't we have any case? She said, it's not, that it's not here. She said it's hadn't reported. She says it was coming. So we made the decision to send the students home. I think that was like on the 12th. But the day after Alabama reported their first case, and it was at Maxwell Air Force Base here in Montgomery, Alabama. So while it was uncomfortable for the students, it was uncomfortable for all of us, we did the best thing at the time to just get our students out of here, let them stay at home, don't return until we could get our hands around this issue. And let me get that because that's so critical in the fall of the return. You guys have successfully kind of mitigated this thing. There's not been talk about Alabama as a state as a hotspot. You guys are planning to move ahead with homecoming this fall. You've had a great amount of cases. How have you successfully been able to manage that public health? Serious, serious issues. Well, listen, and it goes back to relationships. You know, when this all hit, you know, I can remember standing outside of the institution. You know, the campus was empty. But none of us knew, you know, how we would go get a test, where to get a test. You know, it was so new. But I looked across the street and we have a housing community over there. And I said, no, I know being a person of means and having the ability to call and find some things out, some of those individuals definitely would not be able to know where to start. So I got with Dr. Lloyd Davis who was our senior health officer here. And I just said, man, we should do something. Let's partner with the Alabama Department of Health. And so through relationships that I've had from the legislature, her relationships with the Department of Health, we said, look, we want to run a drive-up walk-up clinic, COVID-19 testing clinic for our community. So we partnered with the Montgomery Housing Authority as well as the Department of Health to do this drive-up walk-up testing clinic. You know, the vision was to, first of all, my nurses, they hadn't been trained in how to do COVID testing, nobody had. So we were gonna get that training through the Alabama Department of Health. And secondly, we wanted to be a service to the community under our banner of community diversity. So when we did that, Jared, the very first day, you know, and of course, that's when you had to have protocols, right? You have to have symptoms, you had to present, you know, a fever or whatever. But, you know, I said, hey, listen, if I have a mother of five that stays in a two-bed room and she comes up and she tests positive, right? Chances are. It's difficult for her to isolate number one in a two-bed room. You know, so what can we do to make sure that the mother can be tested and all five children can be tested? And that day, the first day, Jared, the Department of Health allowed us to remove those barriers that I would call them. And we became a testing site, not only for Alabama State University, but for the community at large. Now, we also made sure that all of our faculty, this was just a requirement that we had. All the faculty had to be tested. All of the students had to be tested and athletes. And that was even before you returned to school. Not only did we implement that, we implemented the Sentinel testing, the random testing. And so everyone embraced that process. You know, you heard schools with faculty, you know, giving pushback and, you know, everyone fell into and embraced the direction that we were going in. And because of that, we were less than 2% for the entire year, the first year of COVID. We had two student concerts on our campus, less than 2% because we had created this semi-bubble on campus. We had cut off any public events on campus or everything was just kind of limited to the students. But my health staff was phenomenal. I mean, our Lockhart gym on campus was testing central. And because we had done so well with the testing, when the vaccine came out that January, we have been designated as a vaccination site. So we had, just imagine, we have every test that's out, every rapid test that's out. We have the relationship with the Alabama Department of Health with the PCR tests. We have the antibody tests on campus where I can check my antibodies. We have the rapid testing machines. And then we have every vaccine right here on campus. And so how did that work? And I hate to interrupt you because this is so important. If there is a place where there is, should and could be vaccine hesitancy, particularly among black folks, is Alabama, number one. Number two, how do you navigate such a pioneering role in kind of infection mitigation and awareness and education? When there's a lot of politics around you, that's not how the rest of us feel. So how are you able to do that? Well, look, you know that we were mandated in Alabama to have masks. But you know, and I would tell my people all the time, but as for me and my house, we have been a mandated mask campus from day one. So while everyone was talking about, well, we're masks. You may, Alabama State University has been a mass mandated campus from day one and still today. And so we kept sending those messages, my office of strategic marketing and communications. We made videos. Our health center made videos to send to students, to send to parents. This is the way you wear your mask. This is how you mitigate catching the virus. We partnered with Dragonfly to get some of the top quality virtual, what was it, the temperature check machines. Yeah, with the temperature check machines, the vital statistics that we were able to get, we partnered with them with drone technology to spray our stadiums. We went to have capacity. We didn't go to full capacity. So we still function of those things. Our guide is out there online, our reopening guide. And that's what we call the reopening guide. But we always put in the fine print that it's subject to change based on the information that we had. But it just took a lot of working together. Listen, we vaccinated probably all of the judges in Montgomery. We have vaccinated in Alabama probably over 1,300 employees. We partnered with Hyundai Motor Manufacturing. We vaccinated about 1,300. Right here on this campus, we probably vaccinated more than 1,000 Montgomery public school employees. So we've been on the front line. And it's been because we've been vocal about us being safe. I think we laughed the other day. I told you that I'm the masked police, right? And that just comes from our old high school principal days. We used to tell them to pull the pants up right now. Pull your mask out. Look, I have phenomenal individuals on this campus that we have our think tank. We were meeting daily, Jared. My leadership team, it will be 20 of us on the call, meeting daily about how we will proceed. The faculty and staff adjusted. You talked about a school that had very limited presence online and had to pivot for the students to complete their semester. But we have carried that on. So now we're hybrid, asynchronous, in-person. And look, we have been working to try to get to virtual, right? But this just pushed us there. Pushes over the edge, right? Let me speak to the point about your partnerships, because I think that's critical, particularly in the political area of this. It's well known, as you mentioned, you were a former member of the state legislature. And I'm sure it's no bad thing to say you maintain relationships there. Do you think that that gave you an advantage of coming back home to serve it in a leadership capacity, particularly when everything, and it's not a secret again, all that happened prior to your arrival? I mean, there were years where it was kind of shaky. And you get there, and now it's quiet. It is quiet. Listen, I think that it does play a role. I think when you have people who control the checkbook, they're looking for someone that they could trust. And I think based on my relationships that I had in the legislature when the decision was made, when I made the decision to lead the legislature, I think that some of my colleagues could breathe kind of a sigh. Because they knew that I was the type of person that what you see is what you get. And my whole intention was to come to my alma mater and leave her better than what I found her. And so I think that kind of helped calm the waters. And not to mention, of course, a Republican-controlled legislature, but having relationships on both sides of the aisles, having a reputation to be able to work across party lines to get things done, all of that happened as well. And one of the things that we did when we first got here, we meet in Montgomery every year for a legislative session for about three months. And people come from all over the state and they have to pass by Alabama State University. But you'd be surprised that a number of my colleagues that had never been here. So we quickly, and I tell my people on campus all the time that you have to go to know, right? And so we quickly embrace the idea of inviting individuals in to see, right? A lot of times you look and you say, oh yeah, I know they're over there, but I really don't know what's going on. And so we started our legislative receptions here on campus. And now it's a situation where people call in every year to say, hey, you're all gonna have another reception. Where's my ticket, right? Right, we hosted meetings, commission meetings for different legislative committees here on campus. I open that up because I want people to see all that we have to offer here at Alabama State University. So I think that relationship is important and not only for the legislature, but for the state, the local government, for the city council, for the county commissions, because they're all are great partners for us. And so we truly believe in that, that's all a part of our community, right? State, local, state and federal. We want to have these partnerships to continue to move us to global prominence. So it has been beneficial to us. I know it's hard for you to speak for the sector at large, but do you think that that's something that more campuses or more boards in particular should look at or consider doing in leadership? Maybe it obviously is a better fit as president, but should they look at more legislative trained or legislative forged officials to serve an institution because of those relationships, because you understand the nuance of bills and you know how to monitor lawmaking and you know how to work relationships on both sides of the aisle, particularly in the South. Is that something more HPC community should look at? Well, it certainly can't hurt, Jared. I mean, it certainly can't hurt and it certainly does give an edge. You know, I take my colleague down at grandma, President Rick Gallo, right? Yeah, so I mean, it doesn't hurt to have those type of relationships. And of course those experiences that we bring to the table are something that is totally different from the average experience. And of course, my trajectory to the presidency, you know, being a peer educator, having been on K through 12, having worked in the two-year college system, you know, having been a principal, all of those things come into play. Really, when we talk about leading the university. And so I just think that in order to get the good fit, you have to make sure that you have someone who is well-rounded. I mean, no matter what sector they would come from, but just have, you know, it's like being a, they say I'm a jack-of-all-trades master of none, but you have to have a little bit of everything to kind of maneuver through the overall academic enterprise because all of it will come into play. Research is high at Alabama State. Enrollment is stable. Fundraising going up. Partnerships, you know, even with, you know, the great men of Omega Sci-Fi, I remember covering a big issue with them supporting the institution, particularly because, you know, there's a brother in the seat. Yes. These things are all up. So where do you see the next, you know, two, four years of growth? What is your strategic plan say to you? Here's the next step for Alabama State. Well, you know, we always say at Alabama State University, we're moving 150 years forward. So we're setting the path for us being in existence. So, you know, even when I'm long gone, this question of the relevancy of HBCU, you know, hopefully we will diminish that as we go. But we really want to, you know, make our mark and you talked about research. And of course, I think all of our institutions, basically with the federal government opening up the way that they interact with our institutions, it's going to help us increase in that research area. We also want to make sure that people understand that academically, you know, we, you get a sound academic education from an HBCU. And Jared, I've told people, you know, we have taken to the HBCU designation just by the federal government, but we truly are elite institutions of higher education, right? And so we have to continue to remember that. And so, you know, moving forward, we really want to look at growing our enrollments, but growing them sensibly, growing them so that they match with the retention and the persistence and the completion that we're looking for, making sure that we're still here standing true to our mission to help those first-time students, first-generation students come and have the educational experience of a lifetime and go on to become prominent in the community. Those are the type of things that we're focusing on, you know, continue to establish our partnerships, knowing that we sit in the midst of a community, a region, and being an economic engine, but also being a source of service to the community that's around it. Those are the things that we're continuing to focus on. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. I promise you, you know, when I got here, I used analogy when I talked to all the colleges and everything, I mean, really, we're plugging the holes in a ship, right? Because there were just so many, I mean, even from the deferred maintenance, I mean, we're getting things done on this campus that have needed, I was here 30-something years ago and we just finished a major paving project on campus, right? I know that in some of the front of some of the facilities, they hadn't been paving in 30 years, but we've been able to accomplish it. We just unveiled that we're getting a brand new track for our track team now. That was this week, yep. Right, and so we just continuously, you know, are working toward making that difference, leaving our mark that will help and be to the benefit and success of our students. And don't let me leave out our alumni who have been phenomenal as well. Giving is up because, you know, and we have to be transparent, you know, listen again, we want to make sure that they understand that anything that they do for the universe is the benefit of students, not for any individual. And so that has really helped as well. So the alumni have really stepped up. Our partners are stepping up and we're always looking for partners and finding ways to help for the benefit of our students here at Alabama State University.