DAYTONA BEACH – Approximately 30 Bethune-Cookman University students walked into a Board of Trustees meeting, protesting the board’s refusal to go along with a presidential search committee’s recommendation.
Last September, the search committee voted 11-5 to make William Berry the lone finalist to become B-CU’s 8th president. However, the board vote did not back Berry, the provost and acting president.
Eternity Bradshaw, the Student Government Association president, spoke to board members after students – some carrying signs denouncing the five board members they believe voted against Berry –took seats at two long tables.
“The students stand behind (Berry) firmly, and we’re here to demonstrate to you, once again – because we did this protest last October,” Bradshaw said. “You all called for an executive session and I was polite enough to tell my students to back down. I will not be doing that today, so we are here to just sit and enjoy your company and express our firm stance to stand behind Dr. Berry to be named our next … official president of Bethune-Cookman University.”
Belle Wheelan, president and CEO of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, speaks during a meeting of the Bethune-Cookman University Board of Trustees that had been interrupted by student protesters. Trustees had refused to go along with a search committee’s recommendation that the school make its provost its 8th president.
A board member asked Bradshaw who told her the board had said Berry was “unfit” to be president. Bradshaw responded “the five,” meaning trustees she believes voted against him.
“I heard he didn’t have the balls to run the university. I heard that you guys like him as a person but not to give him the keys to the university. If I’m wrong, please let me know,” Bradshaw said.
Trustee Jennifer Adams questioned where Bradshaw heard that comment and said board members have the right to vote no.
Board Chair Belvin Perry, Jr., said he heard Trustee Pete Gamble say Berry “didn’t have the balls” to run the university.
”That is a true statement,” Perry said. “I heard that with my own ears.”
Gamble responded: “I did make that statement. … And I told Dr. Berry that I was neutral, and I didn’t hear you say that I abstained from voting.”
Board members were not immediately available to say how and when votes were taken on the search committee’s recommendation.
The board’s guest, Belle Wheelan, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges – commonly referred to as SACS – then picked up where she evidently had left off making a presentation to the board about accreditation.
Bethune-Cookman University Provost and Acting President William Berry speaks in an interview at the Daytona Beach campus in March 2024.
Who is William Berry?
Bethune-Cookman has been without a president without an interim or acting tag for nearly four years – since Brent Chrite resigned in March 2021. Since then, three different men have been at the helm: Hiram Powell, Lawrence Drake and William Berry.
In September, the presidential search committee voted to advance Berry as the lone candidate for consideration by trustees. The vote, was 11-5, according to a letter written by Perry. He identified four of the holdouts: Jennifer Adams, Jeff Branch, Pete Gamble and Courtney Rhodes, all trustees.
Berry first joined B-CU in 2015 as a professor of mass communications, where he taught classes and supervised student research projects, before being elevated to senior vice president and provost in January 2021.
Starting in 1991, Berry was a tenured faculty member at the University of Illinois, with appointments to the departments of advertising, journalism, Latino studies, media studies and the Institute of Communications Research. Starting in 2000, he also was associate chancellor of the Urbana campus until 2011, when he retired. Three years later, for the 2014-15 year, the university brought Berry back to serve as interim director of the Institute of Communications Research, the Ph. D-granting program in the department.
Before working in academia, Berry held senior management positions in corporate communications, advertising and research with AT&T/Illinois Bell for 10 years. He started as a journalist in New York and Chicago, where he served as a magazine editor at Ebony and Jet, magazines that covered news and culture focused on African Americans.
Note: This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information is gathered.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: B-CU students walk into board meeting protesting no vote on president