Michael Tidwell, a finalist to become the University of South Alabama’s next president, presented himself Tuesday as someone whose experience was perfect preparation for the job.
Tidwell, the immediate past president of the University of Texas at Tyler, is the third of three candidates to appear at an open forum at the USA Mitchell Center. Damon Andrew, a dean and professor in the College of Education at Florida State University, and Jo Bonner, a former congressman and the chief of staff to Gov. Kay Ivey, introduced themselves and took questions at similar events earlier in October.
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According to a biography provided by USA, Tidwell earned a Bachelor of Science in communication at Ball State University, “where he also lettered as an NCAA Division 1 student-athlete and competed as a member of the #1 nationally ranked collegiate debate team.” He went on to earn a Master of Arts in communication and a Ph.D. in organizational studies from Washington State University. Prior to becoming president of UT Tyler in 2017, he was dean of the Eastern Michigan University College of Business, dean of the College of Business at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and assistant dean of the Clayton State University School of Business. His teaching experience includes faculty positions in Missouri, Washington State, Kentucky and abroad in India and Kenya.
In 2020, as UT Tyler merged with UT Health Science Center, the fusion of administrations left TMHSC leader Kirk Calhoun as president of the newly combined institution. On Tuesday, Tidwell described himself as “on sabbatical” at UT Tyler.
He said his experience at that school would serve him well at USA because the two schools, as well as the challenges they face and the populations they serve, were very similar.
He said that in the summer of 2020 he and his wife had celebrated their 25th anniversary at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear and had liked what they’d seen of the Mobile area. So it seemed like serendipity when he got a call from a search firm a few months later.
“I realized very quickly that there was a level of interest in USA, on my part,” he said. “But it didn’t occur to me that there would be a good fit for me here at USA until I started to review your strategic plan. And that strategic plan speaks to four major initiatives.”
He was struck, he said, by the way those four main points — support for student success and access, a focus on healthcare, prominence as a research institution and responsiveness to the economic needs of the community — mirrored a four-point plan he’d helped develop at UT Tyler.
“We had an identity crisis, as a university,” he said. “We didn’t know who we were until we started that process. And that identity crisis led to a vision statement for the university that then led to those four major initiatives.”
“The University of Texas at Tyler has really positioned itself, under my leadership, to be the educational and economic driver of east Texas,” he said. “But that only happened when we defined what we wanted to be as an institution.”
From what he’s seen of South’s strategic planning process, USA is moving along the same path but isn’t quite finished.
“You all are there right now,” he said. “You just need a gentle push to make sure that we have the proper brand that is authentic and that the local community and regional community responds positively. I’ve got a lot of background and experience in branding.”
He also emphasized that in Texas he’d worked hard to improve the university’s retention of new students. Efforts had paid off particularly well with Hispanic, African-American and economically disadvantaged students, which in turn had helped growth.
“When you’re recruiting new students and keeping the ones you had, you see exponential growth on your campus,” he said.
It was a theme he returned to when a faculty member asked about reconciling ambitions with funding. “South is trying to be a lot of things to different people and we don’t have the resources to be all those things,” she said, adding that most departments would say they’re already short-staffed. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing. How do we change effectively to better be whatever it is that we’re going to be?”
Tidwell said that a truly inclusive planning process is critical for the various factions of a university community to buy into a common set of priorities. But he also said that part of USA’s problem is “an enrollment crisis.”
“Right now, as I’ve looked at the federal data, the last four or five years enrollment here has declined here by 14 percent,” he said. Those missing students represent lost resources, he said.
“We have to fix the enrollment crisis on campus,” he said. “When you have more students, you have more resources.”
Tidwell, like Andrew and Bonner, faced questions about his support for campus safety for constituencies who sometimes felt threatened or unwelcome, including women, minority and LGBTQ students.
He said part of the challenge was making sure it was clear to all that “if they’re a student on this campus they need to be treated equitably. That is the very first thing and that is the most important thing we all have to respect,” he said.
But Tidwell, the only Black finalist, also said he brought a personal understanding to the issue.
“I come from inner-city Los Angeles,” he said. “I’ve been discriminated against, I’ve been harassed by law officers, I mean the list goes on and on of what I’ve had to deal with. So I have a deep appreciation of what, particularly, a lot of students of color, their experience as they’re coming up and into USA. You can trust and believe that as president, we’re going to make sure that we have a very safe culture here on campus.”
As was the case with Bonner and Andrew, Tidwell faced students who’d looked into his record and wanted to challenge him on specific points. One asked about an incident where some UT Tyler students were kicked out of a Ted Cruz appearance, and whether he’d done anything to support them.
Tidwell said he’d paid a quick visit to the event at its beginning but had left before the student protesters clashed with organizers. “Not my event, not my office, not on campus,” he said, “They were there as private citizens protesting Ted Cruz being at that private business.”
He also was asked about an incident in 2018 when UT Tyler over-promised scholarships to foreign students, then abruptly canceled $1.7 million worth of promised support. Tidwell had publicly taken full responsibility for that breakdown, a student asked, so how could he be trusted to meet similar commitments at South?
“That was a very complex issue we dealt with,” he said, reiterating that “the president always takes responsibility for everything.”
He said the university had found other ways to help many of those students, and that “We’ve really improved not just that particular scholarship program but how we allocate scholarships.”
Links to full video of the three finalists’ forum appearances can be found at USA’s presidential search webpages, www.southalabama.edu/departments/trustees/presidentsearch/
According to the site, “After reviewing feedback from the finalists’ campus visits, the Board of Trustees will meet to discuss its selection for president. The new president’s start date will be determined by their individual circumstances and will be announced after discussion with the selected candidate.”
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