PHOTO | TROY HULL

Clarence Armbrister is Johnson C. Smith University’s 14th president. His top priority is to move the school past probation of its accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Clarence Armbrister is working with a sense of urgency at Johnson C. Smith University.

Armbrister, the school’s 14th president, inherits a campus dealing with probation of its accreditation pending a December visit by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The probation caught Armbrister by surprise, he admits. Another challenge is rebuilding the relationship between JCSU’s administration and alumni, who roundly criticized Armbrister’s predecessor, Ronald Carter’s leadership from recruiting Latino students to handling finances.

Armbrister brings a varied professional resume to JCSU: President at Girard College, a preparatory boarding school near Philadelphia as well as executive positions at the School District of Philadelphia. He was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Temple University in Philadelphia and senior vice president and chief of staff at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  

The Miami native was managing director for the School District of Philadelphia from 1996-98, which at that time was the fourth-largest school district in the country with more than 215,000 students. He was Philadelphia’s city treasurer from 1994-96 and chief of staff for former mayor Michael Nutter from 2008-11. Armbrister was a partner in the public finance division of Saul, Ewing, Remick & Saul in Philadelphia. Two of his five children matriculated at  HBCU: A daughter graduated Spelman College in Atlanta and a son is a senior at N.C. Central University in Durham.

In an interview with The Post, Armbrister talked about his vision for JCSU and building the academics. His responses are edited for clarity and brevity.

On making the transition to Charlotte:

“I can’t say enough about the Charlotteans who’ve been so open and welcoming to me, both here at the institution at Johnson C. Smith University and those outside the institution. It’s just been a wonderful onboarding process. People have been so gracious and kind.”

On initial meetings with JCSU constituencies:

I had an opportunity to go around the campus, have conversations – these aren’t presentations by me – and to find out what are on people’s minds. I’ve always said in those meetings that I’m looking at them from a certain perspective and the most important thing being student outcomes. That’s our bottom line, that’s what we’re going to be judged on – how we produce and the type of student we produce here.”

On the challenge of providing more resources:

“People really want Johnson C. Smith University to succeed, and for that, I’m really grateful. We have some work to do internally, and we’re going to do that work. We’re going to have to make sure the resources we do have, we use wisely, but as many HBCUs and other institutions around the country [have maintained], we’re resource-challenged. We’re going to work on that.

“We’re going to diversify our revenue base and expand it to the extent we can and we’re going to make sure that the resources we do get are used wisely and that people are willing to invest in Johnson C. Smith because it’s very clear to me when you talk to students, it’s worth the investment.  The return on a student at Johnson C. Smith is going to be a great return, not only to the region, but to the community and quite frankly, the world, I think.”

Putting more emphasis on recruitment and retention of students:

“Johnson C. Smith has been great about providing access to students who other schools may not give a good, hard look at. We’ve had some outstanding results with a couple of our programs – the Sit Lux program and the Biddle Institute, which have produced outstanding results for students who otherwise may not have gotten an opportunity.

“Then, when we get them in here, we need to retain them. Students today want amenities that unlike you and I went to college they may not want, so we’re going to look at our facilities and make sure the amenities are in line with what students are looking for today so that when we get them here we can retain them.

The importance of academic rigor:

“We want to make sure that when a person walks out of Johnson C. Smith University into that working world or goes on to graduate school or whatever that they are imbued with this pedigree of what Johnson C. Smith is about, and that is to make sure we have an outstanding student who can think critically, who can deal with problems that we don’t even know exist today.”

Building trust with alumni as JCSU navigates accrediting probation:

“I’ve been in these situations before. I’m not daunted by the challenge of doing that. As it relates to some of the specifics of why the alumni might be concerned about, my background is in finance, although the most recent issue regarding our accreditation was a surprise to all of us, including me, it is not something that with a lot of hard work that we can’t overcome. I’m cautiously optimistic and I’m working hard every day. That is my major focus here.

“People say ‘what are the things you’re going to do over your first 100 days’ and I had this long list. It came down to one thing when I got the notice about the accreditation, and there is nothing, and I underscored this to the board [of trustees] at the first board meeting on January 19, and I’ve made it a point to the faculty and staff – there is nothing more important than getting this probation issue resolved, and that is what all of our energies will be addressed to.”   

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