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Harold Martin is back on familiar ground.

The 12th chancellor of N.C. A&T received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from A&T, and he also is a former dean of engineering and vice chancellor for academic affairs at A&T.

The school officially conducted a nationwide search to find a successor for Stanley Battle, who resigned after less than two years at the post.

But most Aggies seemed to know who they wanted from the beginning.

The question wasn’t whether Martin was their man. It was whether he would trade his job as senior vice president for the University of North Carolina system to come back to A&T.

Martin, A&T’s trustees and Martin’s boss, UNC President Erskine Bowles, ultimately agreed: You can go home again.
Martin reflected on his return to Greensboro in an interview with the News & Record’s editorial board.

Some excerpts from that conversation:

Q. How long did it take you to decide you were interested in the A&T job?

A. It took probably a good two to three weeks to really think through the issues and another two to three weeks to finalize that I was indeed interested and was going to put my name in the hat.

I felt that I was in a comfortable place (vice president of the UNC system), and sometimes being in a comfortable place is the best time to start thinking about doing something different, when you get to that level of comfort.

I've tended to do that throughout my career. Whenever I really get to that level of comfort, then you start assessing whether it's the right time to start making a move, and so I wasn't sure whether it was the right time.

I wanted to make sure I was asking myself the right questions and thinking things through, and, frankly, I wanted to make sure that appropriate levels of conversations with the board -- that their interests and my interests about the future of the institution were in line -- and I've been very pleased with the enormous support of the board and their commitment to the institution and thinking about the future of the institution.

Q. You applied for the job once before and didn't get it. How did that affect you this time?

A. A little over 10 years ago now, when I was one of two finalists for the position and didn't get the job, it was a good window of professional opportunity to mature. I'd been here 20 years of my career and had considered leaving for other opportunities.

And each time I considered leaving another opportunity opened up for me at A&T.

When that very disappointing decision was delivered, it created an opportunity for me to back away and think more pragmatically about the future of my career. I realized it was important to make a decision to do something different for my career.

It was a great time to leave and get some additional experience. Those experiences were just remarkable for me, so there are no regrets of any kind.

How did that influence me returning to A&T? I set those issues aside. It was history. I benefited immensely from not having the opportunity to remain here as chancellor then. And it played little, if any, part in my thinking about returning.

Q. Did you consider that, had you stayed in Chapel Hill, you might have been in line to succeed Erskine Bowles as UNC president in a year or two?

A. All those things cross your mind, absolutely. You think about a lot of things, yes. You look at all the possibilities.

Q. Coming to A&T doesn't close the door on that?

A. No, no, I don't think so. That's true. But you also don't want to feel you've made a commitment to come here and have an impact on this institution -- that you've chosen to do that only to leave in two years.

This institution has had four chancellors in 10 years. In my mind, the instability in the leadership role has had an impact on the institution negatively, and I don't want to contribute to that by any means. So I'm here to work very closely with our board and the president and our constituents to advance the institution.

Q. Wasn't that part of the expectation?

A. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Q. What have been your impressions coming back to A&T?

A. The energy and enthusiasm have absolutely been superb. I've had just wonderful conversations with a large number of our constituents and I think we are all in agreement. We are prepared to roll up our sleeves and develop a well-defined agenda for the future of this institution. 

Q. Among all the constituencies a chancellor deals with -- students, faculty, staff, alumni, the community, media -- what have you found in your experience to be the toughest bunch to work with?

A. First, I believe my experience in Winston-Salem helped me realize, this is my personality, you have to value each group, you really do, and you can't allow yourself to dismiss the concerns of any group as being insignificant, and you really have to value their concerns.

You have to be up front and transparent. I have found that in the midst of your most significant critic you have to be prepared to have an engaging, thoughtful conversation with them. I've always done that. ...

Now, in terms of the most difficult constituent group, it's probably between students and alumni.

Students bring a certain expectation from home that the institution is supposed to provide a quality of experiences in a certain environment -- safe, the very best of accommodations, etc., and we have to listen to those. Now, there are limits on our ability to probably provide the same quality of food that Mom provides every day or the quality of housing that they were accustomed to living in when they were growing up. But in terms of the education environment, the instructor climate, the faculty engagement, the preparation for realizing educational goals, we can't fall short of that.

Now alumni, on the other hand, have fond memories of the institution the way it was when they were there, and they absolutely want to see it reflective of the way it was then.

The problem is that things change. The market changes, competitiveness and expectations of graduates change, and the university has to continue to assess trends, assess the market and what the market demands from the graduates, and revise its curricular requirements, revise the expectation of skills that are necessary for your graduates to be successful, and change to be more relevant and competitive.

That, without the kind of communication with alumni you need to have, often times catches them by surprise, and it becomes a concern. So we have to be much more effective in our communication with constituents.

Q. What are you doing to build bridges with alumni?

A. I've already begun some of that conversation with the national alumni officers, engaging them via telephone and e-mail. I never missed a national alumni officers meeting when I was chancellor at Winston-Salem State because I thought it was that important, and that would be my expectation here.

Q. It does help you that you are an alumnus yourself.

A. It does, it does ... well, I think it will help me up to a point. But I don't want to rely on that. I want to rely on trust and open communication and respect, quite honestly.

Q. What is the number one thing you would hope to accomplish in five years?

A. I would believe that we would be able to confidently and successfully say that the institution five years from now compares very competitively with its peers in producing graduates who are successful in realizing educational goals and being well prepared for the market.

And that, on all measures that we have established as benchmarks for our institution, we are at least in the top 25 percent of our peers -- at least. I think that would be realistic and quite practical.

Q. What are the top issues on your to-do list?

A. First and foremost, we've got to deal with this major budget reduction that has resulted from a poor economy, so we have been having very extensive discussions about how we deal with these budget reductions and minimize the impact on our core mission -- teaching, research and public service -- so we are still able to address the broad needs of our students as we see a growing student population.

Secondly we need to clearly define where we see the institution heading over the next five to 10 years and shape out a well-defined, bold and aggressive agenda of how competitive we want the institution to be, gain broad-based constituency involvement in those discussions and get very busy in laying out the plans and making investments to advance the institution.

Q. How do you view the tension between raising admission standards and meeting the traditional mission of increasing access to higher education for students who may not have strong academic credentials but might be diamonds in the rough?

A. As you know, HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) have been great contributors to creating the middle class of African Americans throughout America, and A&T has done nothing less than contribute substantially in producing outstanding graduates throughout its history.

At the time it was continuing to do that, though, the diversity of A&T's students in terms of academic preparation was quite diverse.

We had extremely well-prepared students. We also had students who were not as well prepared.

Their mixing with other students who were well prepared helped them along the way in many instances. Graduation rates, retention rates were not an issue during that time frame, quite honestly. You didn't have to deal with such things as teaching certificates and licensure exams for nurses, etc., during that window. It wasn't that critical an issue.

Today there are far more important, relevant comparisons of an institution against those institutions with whom we compete -- graduation rates, nursing certification, teaching certification, etc. -- so we have to be more competitive today. The market is much more competitive.

African American students have enormous options today. So if we want to compete for an appropriate share of well-prepared students and, quite frankly, a diverse student population, we have to be sure our institution, even with its great history and traditions, is prepared to compete with relevant and competitive academic programs, outstanding facilities, a safe environment for students to learn, work and play, and in preparation for the world of work.

In today's climate, setting competitive academic standards for admission, setting greater levels of expectations for faculty productivity, increasing the performance of our institution's degree programs overall is very important, so we can't compromise.

Q. What would a goal be for a future fundraising campaign?

A. Our last capital campaign, which we officially closed this past December, was a $100 million campaign. The campaign fell a little short of our goal. The final number was about $89 million. It's not unrealistic that a $100 million to $125 million goal is a reasonable goal for our institution, quite hownestly. We're very close to a $100 million goal. I've already asked our development staff to begin thinking about the framework of a new capital campaign.

Q. What lessons from your first chancellorship, at Winston-Salem State, can you apply to A&T?

A. When you set high expectations, plan well and execute with broad-based discussions with your most important constituents, it's amazing what you can achieve.