Fired Southern president reacts to board wanting to go in a new direction. See what he said.
Dennis Shields confirmed Friday he would be leaving his job as Southern University’s president at the end of the year, saying the school’s Board of Supervisors wanted to go in a different direction.
Shields said he has been aware of the board’s intentions for the past five weeks.
“It was indicated to me the board wanted to go in a different direction, and I accept that. It’s not the way I would have done it, but that’s the prerogative of this board,” Shields said at the end of Friday’s Board of Supervisors meeting held in New Orleans before the Bayou Classic.
According to Board of Supervisors Chair Tony Clayton, the selection of an interim president is expected to be made at the board’s Dec. 19 meeting.
Clayton said Shields will “continue to be part of this family,” and will return to Southern as staff at the law school following a six-month sabbatical.
Shields’ comments on his departure were driven by four words, he said: brevity, gratitude, humility and authenticity.
But after roughly 10 minutes of thanking a host of colleagues in the Southern system, Shields began to choke up.
“I’m grateful,” Shields said. As he regained his composure, a round of standing applause broke out in the crowd.
Shields has led both Southern University’s main campus and the college system since early 2022. Before he was appointed to the role, he was president of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for 12 years.
Originally from Iowa, Shields earned his undergraduate degree in business from Graceland College, now Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, and his Juris Doctor from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Speaking after the applause, Shields talked about how his upbringing influenced his future career.
“You need to understand where I came from,” he said. Born to an unmarried White mother and a Black father, Shields spent his formative years in an orphanage and then in foster care.
He said his second foster family was headed by a Black doctor who practiced in rural Iowa and who graduated from an HBCU, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
“So as a 7- and 8-year-old … if not for them, I wouldn’t have had any exposure to that level of Black achievement. And from that point forward, I always knew I was going to go to college, because I thought that’s what you did.”
Shields said this experience carried him through the difficulties of attending a predominantly White university, which had only 50 Black students out of the 1,200-person student body. It was led him on the path to being president of Southern University.
“My foster father was, was the epitome of that. He came from nothing. When we visit his family, his mother lived in a shack,” Shields said. “And I’ll tell you, what impressed me is that whole family. He drugged that whole family out of poverty, and that’s a direct result of being engaged with us, with a HBCU, and that’s the story of Southern, that’s why I wanted to lead an HBCU.”
No interim president chosen
The Board of Supervisors did not vote Friday on an interim president to replace Shields because a computer error delayed the item’s placement on the meeting’s posted agenda, Clayton said.
Before word of Shields’ firing was made public on Friday, the lack of comment from Southern had worried some alumni, two of whom made public comments Friday to express those worries immediately after the announcement that no interim president will be selected.
“I’m really disturbed about the future of Southern University and the direction that we’re going, which is unbeknown to the public because there has been no public statement,” said Tina Williams, an alumnus who founded the Williams Center for Undergraduate Student Achievement in 2017 alongside her husband, Tony.
Williams said alumni have had only rumors to go on for why the sudden shift in leadership has taken place.
She asked the board members if any of them could tell her why Shields’ last day is Dec. 31, and what they are looking for in a leader instead.
“Everybody that’s viewing online and that’s in this room has an interest in our great alma mater. It should be no secret,” she said.
A few commenters on the meeting’s livestream agreed, asking for “transparency.”
“If we do select a new interim president in December, it’s going to take them about three months to figure out what’s going on,” said Tony Williams, speaking after his wife. “Then we got to select a president, and whenever he or she may show up, it’s going to take them about three months to figure out what’s going on … So now we’ve got 12 months in a year, but we done lost six months.”
To Tony Williams, this would mean that Southern would not have secure and knowledgeable leadership until 2027.
“So by the time we get somebody in there, we already lost 2026,” he said. “It’s over. I mean, just do the math.”
Tony Williams concluded by saying that he currently doesn’t know what to tell other worried alumni who call him.
“So all I would ask is that, can we just communicate on what we doing so we know how to help you all move the university forward?” he said.
Clayton thanked the Williamses for speaking and for their ongoing support for the university, but said the board could not give them any answers Friday.
“Mr. And Mrs. Williams, Southern hears you and the law just doesn’t allow us to talk about personnel matters,” Clayton said. “But we hear you, and that’s all I can tell you, that we do hear you and thanks again for what you do.”
