Polk marks 35th year as a college president

By Fred Pace
Register-Herald Reporter

April 25, 2009 11:17 pm

— Any time anyone asks Mountain State University President Charles Polk about when he plans to retire, he always responds with the same answer.
“Five more years,” he said during a recent interview with The Register-Herald. “I’ve been saying that for many years now.”
Polk marks his 35th year as a college president on May 1. The three-and-a-half decades as leader of a college is a real rarity in higher education today. Only two other college presidents nationally have held the position longer than Polk — Xavier University President Norman Francis, with 41 years of service, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette President Ray Authement with 36 years — according to The Chronicle of Higher Education and The American Council on Education.
“I have enjoyed every moment of my career,” Polk said. “It’s been sort of like a rollercoaster ride with ups, downs and curves, but in the end you look back and say it was a fun ride.”
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Polk comes from humble beginnings. He grew up on a farm in east Texas.
“I used to go out in the field in this tall grass and lay down in it and dream of who I was going to be when I grew up,” he recalled.
Polk says he was raised by a family of preachers and singers.
“My grandmother and grandfather on both sides were some of the original founders of the Assembly of God churches in east Texas,” he said. “My grandmother and grandfather on my daddy’s side were these brush arbor preachers who would travel from town to town and start churches.”
Polk said his family believed he would eventually be a preacher.
“Back in those days you had Oral Roberts and all these big tent rivals going on,” he said. “I really loved the gospel music and I saw myself traveling and singing with a gospel group.”
Polk says he still sings.
“And some people say I still preach,” he said with a smile.
As Polk neared adult age he focused on college.
“I went to college and got a four-year degree and then a master’s degree,” he said. “Then, by the age of 22, I became a college teacher.”
The following year Polk moved to North Carolina to be a psychology and sociology professor at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst.
“It was there that I began to dream again about who I was going to be,” he said.
Being a college president became one of those dreams.
“I thought it would be a good career,” he said.
His dreams were validated when others said he should consider the position.
“In 1970 I was in Florida visiting Daytona Beach Community College and I met this 32-year-old college president,” he said. “That’s making it really young to that position. I thought maybe I could do the same.”
Polk ultimately went to work for the president.
“That was a great stepping stone for me,” he said.
In 1973, he applied for the position.
“On May 1, 1974, at age 31, I was hired as college president at Daytona Beach Community College.”
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At age 66, Polk says he doesn’t have the physical stamina to do the things when he was much younger, but he works a lot smarter than he did 35 years ago.
“I do less, but still consume about he same about of time,” he said.
Today, he says, he is in a pattern.
“It’s like an airplane,” he explained. “I can still circle the airport and I can create and think, but I haven’t decided yet to land.”
Polk has stayed physically active his entire life.
“I still try to be as much of an athlete today as I did 40 years ago,” he said.
He drinks only water and eats very healthy.
“I generally stay with a healthy diet and it has allowed me to stay physically and mentally young,” he said.
Polk says higher education is a business.
“Our consumers are young and I want to stay in tune with them,” Polk said. “If you allow yourself to get old in this business, you become immediately out of touch with the people buying your product.”
Polk says many college presidents achieve a certain level and then let the job make them old.
“They let the position make them old as opposed to letting the group they lead keep them young,” he said. “I tried to stay as young as I possibly can and remain as active today as I was 40 years ago.”
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In Florida, Polk took a one-campus college and over 16 years he turned it into a five-campus institution and one of the larger players in the state.
“That stands out as one of the high points in my career,” he said.
Around 1988, Polk began thinking of doing something else with his life.
“I settled on three things,” he said. “Merrill Lynch wanted me to be a spokesperson for tax-exempt bonds and travel and sell to schools’ boards of trustees. Then I thought maybe I didn’t want public life anymore and wanted to be a recluse.”
Polk picked a remote area in Jackson, Wyo., to look at a convenience store that was for sale.
“I took my family there and seriously considered going into the convenience store business,” he said.
Polk was also considering different presidency positions at various colleges and universities.
“I eventually took a college president’s position with a school in New Jersey, but stopped in Beckley again to see if I could work out an agreement to maybe come to Beckley instead,” he said.
A deal was done and Polk became president of Beckley College in 1990.
Beckley College was founded in 1933. The private, nonprofit institution began as a junior college and opened with 97 students and classrooms rented from a local church.
During the first half-century, the college experienced slow growth, but had steady increases in enrollment, staff, facilities and programs.
“They didn’t have the ability at that time to grow like we have over the past several years,” Polk said. “Considering the time period, they did extremely well with the college.”
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In 1990, when Polk took over Beckley College, the school was in financial trouble.
“It couldn’t pay its bills and was virtually bankrupt,” he said.
Polk said it was the challenge of leading the college into a new and exciting era that attracted him to the job.
“With some new leadership and a board that gave me the latitude to do what I thought best, the institution began to grow each year,” he said. “We have seen the depth of the institution expanded in every aspect. That is where we are at today, riding a good, long trend of success.”
The 1990s also brought an era of tremendous change, including the transition from a two-year to a four-year college, known as The College of West Virginia, and then to a master’s level institution. New buildings were erected and continue to be built, and degree programs were expanded to include high-demand professional and technical fields, as well as the humanities, arts and sciences.
“Beckley College maneuvered its way through this maze of uncertainty,” Polk said. “We had to take a global view, which resulted in the need for a name change; thus, Mountain State University was born in August 2001.”
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June 30 marks the 19th year Polk has been at the school.
Polk says while the university keeps its eye on the future, this is also a good time to look at its past. The school celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2008.
“We can look back and say thanks to the community, staff and students that made Mountain State University a success story,” he said. “The 75th anniversary was really the foundation for what we are going to do in the future.”
Polk said when you look at MSU you consider its geography.
“You look at where it is in Beckley on South Kanawha Street, so what we do here to make this continue to grow and develop is a big business and a serious issue,” he said. “It merits lots of attention. The growth of this campus in Beckley is the one that we really need community involvement and community ownership because I believe in the past few years we have really become significant to who Beckley is and who Beckley can become in the future.”
In addition to its main campus in Beckley, MSU has four branch campuses in Martinsburg, Center Township, Pa., Orlando, Fla., and its newest location at the Hickory (N.C.) Metro Higher Education Center.
“We must think about facility growth and development there as well,” he said. “The Eastern Panhandle is going to be a very large marketplace for institutions in the future and we want to take that very seriously.”
Polk said online education and distance learning are growing dramatically.
“Distance learning is so important to this institution that we couldn’t live without it,” he said.
Polk predicts distance and online learning and independent study will make up half of the institution’s income in the next five years.
“We are talking about the regionalization, nationalization or globalization of MSU,” he said. “This type of learning knows no boundaries and has no definition, but it is everywhere.”
The school has a total annual enrollment of more than 8,000 students from all 50 states and a host of other countries.
“We are proud of where we have come from, proud of who we are today and excited about our future,” he said. “I know we have a very viable future here at MSU.”
So when will Polk retire?
“Maybe in about five years,” he said.
— E-mail: fpace@register-herald.com

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