In a rare move of bipartisanship at the State Capitol, Tennessee’s Joint Subcommittee of Education, Health and General Welfare unanimously voted to recommend that Tennessee State University’s (TSU) board of trustees be extended for one year.
Monday’s vote follows last week’s highly publicized report from the State Comptroller’s Office that recommended state legislators consider replacing TSU’s Board of Trustees and management, amid claims university administrators were directly responsible for some students having to live in a hotel.
Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower told subcommittee members the university’s problem began in 2021, when management conducted an extensive campaign to recruit students the university knew it didn’t have housing for. TSU has had a housing shortage since 2017 according to the Comptroller.
“Management at TSU made a series of decisions that put the university in a housing crisis and clearly it is a crisis that they should’ve seen coming,” said Comptroller of the Treasury Jason Mumpower. “It appears the Board of Trustees were deficient in their fiduciary duty in regard to keeping an eye on what was happening with the decisions made at the campus.”
Despite the allegations in the report, subcommittee members appear to have been swayed by comments from TSU leaders and multiple supporters, who say the university is addressing issue and has been hindered by historic underfunding.
TSU leaders told subcommittee members the university is working to build new housing and is aligning enrollment to its housing capacity. The university is also evaluating other changes, including leadership changes.
Subcommittee members also heard from TSU National Alumni Association President Charles H. Galbreath Jr. and alumni Dr. Carolyn Baldwin Tucker who both say the university shouldn’t be placed under the State Board of Regents as the Comptroller recommended considering. They claim TSU would be in a better position to respond to its housing crisis if it hadn’t been denied hundreds of millions in promised land-grant funding.
“The issue of land-grant funding must be considered when assessing the university’s business affairs and overall management. The Tennessee State Board of Trustees, Dr. Glenda Glover and her administration should be able to lead without maneuvering the restraints of being underfunded,” said Galbreath.
“Under the Board of Regents, to be placed, again, is detrimental,” said Dr. Tucker. “The Board of Regents is the entity under which Tennessee State was denied the $500 million that had it been granted under the Land Grant Act, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. Because they would have had the money to do the things that they needed to do.”
The subcommittee also heard from current TSU students including Darrell Taylor and Chrishonda O’Quinn.
Both spoke out against the Comptroller’s recommendation.
“If we had the resources and funds that we are owed, we would not be facing the issues that we have today. Simply speaking, Housing would not be in the state that it is if we were given the promised dollars from the state. We cannot fault the Board of Trustees for not having the amount of resources needed from the state to manage this university efficiently,” said Taylor.
“For the past week, I think many of us have been wondering why TSU is in such target of harsh measures. The student body has been harmed by poor choices and errors made by Tennessee State University, yet, I do not think this justifies taking away our agency, our ownership of our space,” said O’Quinn.
The subcommittee’s unanimous recommendation that TSU’s board of trustees be extended for one year now goes to the full Government Operations Committee for final approval.
