 Tensions in the Elizabeth City, North Carolina continue to reach ahead over the tragic shooting of Anthony Brown, a resident in the city. Body cam footage is that question. Protest and animosity is that question. And it's all part of a growing national and international conversation about how communities of color and particularly black communities can have better relationships with police officials. Here to talk with us today is the chancellor of that city's flagship institution, Dr. Kerry Dixon Chancellor of Elizabeth City State University. Madam Chancellor, thank you so much for joining us. You today wrote a letter to your campus body, a really heartfelt letter describing your, your sense that this happens too much. Exactly. And at a certain point, you know, there's something that has to be done because we can't have our temperature going up and down like this almost on a weekly basis at this point. Can you talk to us about what prompted you to write that letter? And the themes of bridging education as a salve for moments like this. Well, first I wanna thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carter for inviting me onto your show today. And this is really the first time that I've spoken publicly in regards to what has happened here at Elizabeth City in Elizabeth City. And I am just quite honored to be able to share a little bit about what we are experiencing as well as as you alluded to the letters that I sent out today to my campus community in regards to my reflections on what has occurred since the tragic incident of Andrew Brown being killed on last Wednesday at 8.30 a.m. here in Elizabeth City. And to give you a sense of kind of where we are with this, you know, I have described this as a very difficult time. I've spoken to many people in the community beyond ECSU, across the state, across the country who have called to reach out and to offer their support. But, you know, as we think about and reflect about, you know, what we're seeing right now, it just, it's almost as though this reality is or has been defined because it's right here in our backyard. And I received a call from our ECPD chief of police on last Wednesday about two hours after the shooting to tell me that it occurred. And the reason for that is because our campus is only three miles away from where this happened in a little bit of the city. And so in talking with him, he of course told me what had occurred that deputies from the Pasquitank Sheriff's Office had been involved in the shooting that ended in a fatality. And at the time that's all I knew. So I immediately convened my cabinet and I told my cabinet, we need to let our students know it is our responsibility because as this news trickled out across Elizabeth City and beyond, we needed to convene our students. And so I felt like it was best to communicate with them directly in person and not by email. And so we sent out an email to our campus, told our students to gather at the promenade, which is a central location on our campus right in the quad area. On the way there, it happened to start raining. So we ended up moving our convening into the student center. But to my surprise, we had a significant number of students and staff and faculty gather at five o'clock on that day that this happened. And I spoke directly to our campus community and I told them that it is okay to feel angry. It is okay to feel sad. It is okay to cry. What we have seen played out across our country as it relates to this act of violence more specifically against African Americans by law enforcement. This is something that we've watched from afar, but to have it right here in our backyard three minutes away from our campus, it makes it even more a reality for our campus community. And I wanted our students to have a safe space to talk about their feelings, to yell, scream, whatever they wanted to do. Because we were all hearing this for the first time on that very day and there were a lot of emotion and we needed to convene and be together to support one another to understand or try to even process what had occurred right here in Elizabeth City. So you have a lot of emotions and allegiances tied to this thing. Not only are you the leader of a campus and so you have thousands of students who are in your care, students who you know feel patchy about that and want to be a part of trying to create a solution, even if that's just by protest or making their voices heard. You're the steward of the flagship institutions in the city that you have to protect if something goes wrong. You're also a mom. How do you navigate all of these things in communicating to your students and working with your staff and your faculty and the community leaders and the police to figure out what is the space that I can give my students to speak out about this if they choose to do so versus the protection, the protectiveness that comes in to say I don't want any of these babies to be heard. Exactly, and it's a delicate balance that we have to take as leaders and especially as you mentioned as leaders of HBCUs who the city looks to as a prominent member of the community. And one thing that I told my students is I'm not gonna tell them do not go out there and protest. I believe in the First Amendment rights that we all have to voice and to advocate and to be there in support of what we believe is our truth. And so, but I did tell my students, if you go out there to protest, do so peacefully and also be aware of your surroundings because one thing that we all know just based on what we've seen play out across the country is that a protest can start out peaceful but when you have others come in who may not have the same love for the city and the area as you do, those protests can sometimes turn violent, especially with counter protesters showing up and other things that could escalate. But I'm really proud of our city as I noted in my letter today because ever since this occurred last Wednesday, we have had peaceful protests every day and the citizens of Elizabeth City have been out there and I've heard many of them say, this is our city, this is our home. We want to fight for justice, but we're not gonna tear up or destroy where we live. This is where we live. And so, just hearing them say that and understanding that they are there to voice and advocate for transparency and accountability on behalf of Andrew Brown and his family and what occurred here last Wednesday. And so I'm not gonna tell my students, no, don't go, but I am gonna equip them, as I mentioned, with some encouraging advice of how to handle a situation if one was to occur. And as I mentioned, so far, no violence, no destroying of property. It's been very peaceful with the protests and this is, I believe, day seven or eight that we are experiencing this. And so, I've been very open with my students about that because I know they hurt, I hurt, we hurt. There's a lot of sadness here because this was a member of our community. I did not know Mr. Brown personally. He was not an alum of ECSU, but he was in our community and when one is treated badly or in his case, a fatality takes place over something that is perceived as injustices that are occurring around this and the facts continue to come. But from what we know and we have been told right now, this is a bad situation, a tragic situation and we feel for the family and we're a part of this community and we wanna continue to support them in that way and through this process. Just very quickly, we know that policy and leaders in Elizabeth City have declared a state of emergency. We know that there is preparation for the likelihood of something becoming larger in scale. Possibly dangerous, what logistically or what obligations does the institution have to prepare for those things or what kind of conversations are you having and say, here's what the school's response or here's what the school's role is if things progress in such a way that it becomes dangerous. So we have been very supportive of the city. The chief of police for Elizabeth City, Eddie Buffalo has been very transparent with us, our city manager, Montray Freeman, all those officials here and I can name all of them but I know we don't have that much time but all of them have been very helpful with helping us to make decisions and I say us because there are two other higher education institutions here in Elizabeth City and so just having the leaders come together and giving us as much information as they can so we can make the right decisions. One thing that we have done to help out in this process is I have provided ECPD, few of my sworn officers from campus here on the ECSU campus and I have requested from the UNC system that we bring officers from other campuses, North Carolina Central was here yesterday to help us out. As the crowd grows, we're a small city. We are, our population is 18,000 people. So if you put that in perspective, the more the crowd grows, the harder that is on our city police to control and maintain they've been very supportive as I said, the peaceful protests that have occurred, they've allowed that, they've allowed those, the people to be out there protesting and doing so in a safe way and so they needed help and we are providing help in that manner and we're making some very tough decisions. As leaders, we can only make decisions based on the information that we're given at the given time and so we have been making those decisions, I've been making those decisions to keep our campus community safe as well and so we're just taking this day by day and I do believe justice will prevail here in Elizabeth City and we have to continue to support each other and move through this experience that we have right here in our backyard and this situation and how it has played out. I think we will be wiser and stronger when this is finally at rest but for now, we have to do, we have to do and continue to ask for peace and justice going throughout this process. You let off your letter today, which was just a few hours ago where it was released in the public, talking about the value of education and speaking truth in moments like this and providing support and comfort in moments like this. Now ECSU has had some dynamic academic and workforce development things happened over the last year. Most notable of them has been the McKenzie Scott $15 million gift, several partnerships for your aviation program and the drone technology as well as flight certification for emerging pilots. These things are major for the institution, major for the institution. What practical things do these things happening with and for ECSU do at a moment like this where the country is looking in on the city and there's a moment for you to say, hey, look, here's all this positive stuff going on here. We don't want to be known for a shooting. Is that appropriate or is it something that you feel can help in a moment like this? Well, I think it's twofold. I think, of course, we want to continue to grow enrollment. We have grown our academic programs and as you mentioned our signature program is aviation science and we are the only four year degree program in North Carolina offering that four year degree in aviation science. And so we're quite proud of our signature program and the attention, the visibility that it has gotten. We are producing pilots. We're building a pipeline of pilots and the FAA chose us because they wanted to diversify the pipeline of pilots for the aviation industry anticipating the influx of retirements that were gonna occur starting 2020. So we were right here in that space. We just signed a partnership with United Airlines. And so that was exciting. When I started here at ECSU, one of my goals was to partner with one of the major airlines and finally that goal has come to fruition. And so we're excited about the partnership with United Airlines. As far as the Mackenzie Scott gift, we were caught by surprise, but of course very grateful that she saw the vision that I have put forth in our strategic plan for ECSU, the road ahead, building the foundation of stability for this institution has always been my top priority. And so this $15 million gift from Mackenzie Scott will allow us to establish some financial footing for the university's future. And as an HBCU, we all talk about very often, how under-resourced we are, lack of funding historically and things like that. And so this gift that she has provided really allows us to give ourselves a boost at ECSU in regards to establishing a cash flow and having investments in our endowments that will continue to grow and continue to make the university financially stable. So we are quite very happy about that. And as she said, she looked for strong leadership, she looked for strong leadership teams, she looked for vision and to be a part of her assessment. And we're a small HBCU in rural North Carolina, the smallest public HBCU in the UNC system and to have someone like Mackenzie Scott notice us and bring us to the table with her gift is something that really is a great benefit. And I often say quite a blessing to Elizabeth City State University and I'm so proud to be a part of that. But in regards to where we are, it is still, like I said, twofold as far as the situation that has occurred, we're in recruitment season right now. We're ahead with our recruitment. We've grown significantly. I've been here three years. We've had an enrollment has grown 40% and 13% during a pandemic. So people are noticing the quality education at an affordable price that you will get at Elizabeth City State University and they're taking advantage of it. And we're happy because we want to grow. We want to grow back into our campus, back into the campus that many of our alumni remember when it was as much as 3,500 students and we want to even surpass that if we can. And so it's an exciting time for ECSU. I'm just glad to have alumni and have partners and stakeholders and friends of the university who believe in the university. I've had many reach out to me and say y'all are going to get through this is going to be okay. But as a leader, I do think about those things. What will happen in regards to how parents feel about sending their child to ECSU under the circumstances of what has happened and how that has played across the media nationally. And I can assure parents that our campus is safe, that we do all we can to make sure that it remains that way. And as things like this play out, we just have to understand that is the realistic view of what we're all dealing with and seeing across our country. And so this is something that is much bigger than ECSU and much bigger than Elizabeth City. And so we are trying to do all we can to continue to lead and provide a great, excellent education for our students who are currently enrolled and our students who are coming to us in the years to come. So... Yeah, let's talk about that for the final question. And again, I appreciate very much your time. You guys are preparing for commencement. It's gonna be different from this time last year. It's kind of a return to normalcy in a lot of ways. You guys are still part of the NC Promise Plan which provides affordable tuition for in-state and out-of-state students coming to the institution. There's a new policy for out-of-state enrollment which should bolster even more opportunities for students to come and to help with Revenue City Institution. What makes you most optimistic, even in the face of things going on in the city and recovery from COVID, what makes you most optimistic and most excited about what's to come for Elizabeth City State? Well, just a number of things, Jared. I would say one would be the visibility, the perception that people have about Elizabeth City State University as far as the quality education they will receive for an affordable price. And you mentioned we are still an NC Promise campus. We will have NC Promise until 2025. We are the only HBCU in North Carolina who's a part of the NC Promise program. The other two is UNC Penn Broken Western Carolina. And so with NC Promise, tuition is $500 per semester. And for in-state students and tuition for out-of-state students is $2,500 per semester. So to your listeners, you may say, wow, how are you doing that? Well, the North Carolina General Assembly put in place this tuition reduction program and they supplement the money that we would typically charge for tuition. And so they have agreed to do that until 2025. So some of, you know, I believe NC Promise definitely has enhanced the people as far as their interest in ECSU, especially now during the pandemic where people are looking for the best education opportunities for the best price because people have options everywhere. And so I believe that is helping us with our enrollment growth, but I also think just the quality of our academic programs and aviation, our business school, we still have pharmaceutical science, we have education, which is where we were founded as a normal school, as a teacher's college. You know, all those things is our rich tradition and making up who we are as an institution historically. And we just celebrated 130 years this year, founded in 1891. So ECSU has been around, we've had our challenges, but I'm excited about the future. I'm excited about the direction. I'm excited about all HBCUs right now across our country and how people are finally, it feels like finally taking notice of what we're producing in our alumni, going out and doing amazing things, having amazing careers and professions. So I'm just happy to be a part of that and I see great things coming our way here in Northeastern North Carolina. We are surrounded by 21 counties that we serve and we want to, as a senior institution in this region, continue to serve and continue to grow. Now, in regards to the 18% cap increase, the Board of Governors did agree to move the 18% cap out of state students to 25%. And that's helpful because we're located on the border. We're considered a border campus. We're only 30 minutes from Chesapeake, Virginia. And so this tuition reduction program, NC Promise, is appealing to people in Virginia, in Maryland, in Washington, D.C., surrounding states. We're seeing a lot of students coming from those areas and I don't wanna turn them away. I want them to be able to come to ECSU. Our data shows that often when they come, they stay in North Carolina, so that helps to boost our economy. And so when we think about the benefits of doing such a thing, I'm very, very happy that the Board of Governors agreed to allow the HBCUs to do this in North Carolina and it was only a request for the HBCUs in the UNC system. We are the ones who were granted the flexibility to exceed this 18% cap.