Re: Alcorn State President Died!!
Jag-BR said:
I don't know if it's true, but he died of a heart attack. :nod: My prayers are with his family, and also the Alcorn family! :nod:
It's true.
Friends, peers remember leader
Alcorn State University president, the late Clinton Bristow Jr., during a meeting of the President's Council in Jackson in 2003.
Clinton Bristow Jr. was one of those men who looked you in the eye when he was talking to you, letting you know that you mattered.
Before answering questions, he usually paused to consider his response, not because he wanted to think of a good way to spin it, but because he wanted what he said to be important.
The people who knew him said Bristow brought passion to what he did, led his life with a keen sense of purpose and, above all, cared deeply about the students at Alcorn State University.
"He was a great role model for African-American men," said Alcorn's student government president Larry Duncan, 22, a senior. "He taught us to reach for the top so we can succeed."
He said Bristow's mantra was "ASU equals CEO" and referred to the university as the "Academic Resort."
Bristow, 57, an avid runner, died Saturday night while jogging on campus. He had been president of the 3,500-student university since 1995.
He was credited with improving the physical campus at Alcorn, upping the graduation rate and heavily recruiting nonblack students, a goal set forth by a complicated lawsuit settled a few years ago.
Recently retired Alcorn administrator Malvin Williams was named Sunday night as the university's interim president. He will serve until a permanent replacement is found.
But the focus Sunday was on Bristow.
"You know you have a really significant man in front of you," remembered James Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup Organization, a global public opinion polling firm. "He had one of the most charismatic personalities I have known in 10 years."
Clifton, whose organization was working with Bristow to create a leadership training program at Alcorn, described the university president as "loaded with charisma."
Lester Newman, president of Mississippi Valley State University, another historically black university, said he met Bristow more than 15 years ago when both were deans at other colleges.
He and others praised Bristow as a man who constantly worked to make his school a better one so its students could succeed.
"One of his strong suits at Alcorn was that he was deeply committed to move people into graduate school," Newman said. "Alcorn has started to develop a reputation for moving people to the next level."
Alpha Morris, the treasurer-elect of Alcorn's alumni association, said student achievement was Bristow's first priority, including after they'd left Alcorn.
He stressed the importance of students either entering the job market or going on to graduate and professional school, said Morris, also a sociology professor and chair of the social sciences department.
She said the alumni met with Bristow on Saturday and discussed some concerns they had about the university with him.
"He took notes," she said. "Those notes were going to become realities."
Perry Taylor, an 18-year-old sophomore, remembered how Bristow stayed up three days straight after Hurricane Katrina, making sure there was enough gas on campus so students could drive home. He made sure those who couldn't leave campus were OK, too.
Taylor said he and a couple of friends living in the dorm told Bristow they didn't feel comfortable staying there. Bristow allowed the men to stay in rooms in the campus police dorm for a few nights.
"That's why I respect the man," Taylor said.
Ronald Mason Jr., president of Jackson State University, said Bristow was in Jackson one day not long after Katrina.
Mason, whose parents were living with him at the time, said Bristow came by his house just to chat with Mason's parents.
"In fact, my mother was making him a pot of okra gumbo (when he died)," Mason said. " I was going to take it to him this week."
William B. DeLauder, former president of Delaware State University, said Bristow was developing a national reputation, especially at historically black colleges.
"He has a passion for students and a passion for being able to put in place programs that give students an opportunity to do well," he said.
Wiley Jones, director of special projects at Alcorn and a university employee for 41 years, remembered Bristow when he first came to the university.
"I couldn't have chosen anyone any better than him," Jones said. "He changed the landscape of the campus, beautified the campus. He had old structures, those that were no longer useful or eyesores, demolished and made into plazas."
Willie Meaux, president of the Meaux Washington Group, a firm that lobbies for black land grant institutions in Washington, D.C., said Bristow grew to love his adopted home, despite being from Chicago. "He loved Mississippi," he said. "I feel pain for Mississippi because this man loved your state."
Dwayne Ashley, CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Fund, said Bristow always looked on the bright side of things.
"He was by far one of the most positive human beings you could ever come across," he said. "No matter what you talked about, Dr. Bristow talked about the positive side about it."
Bristow had a daughter, Maya, attending graduate school out of state, said Lezli Baskerville, who described herself as "Alcorn's first lady," though she would neither confirm nor deny rumors that the two had recently been married.
Baskerville is president of the National Association of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
"He died in a place that he loved, among people he loved," Basker-ville said. "He died at the top of his game."
She said he coined the phrase "communiversity," and strengthened the bond between the school and the surrounding community.
She said he described his time at Alcorn as "among the richest experiences of his career."
A memorial service is tentatively scheduled for Friday.