David Thomas
President of Morehouse College
“If you don't get caught up in needing to be the person who has the great ideas, but instead focusing on identifying the great ideas and getting behind them…that's how you’ll become successful.”
Summary
On this episode of Leadership Matters David Thomas, President of Morehouse College shares his insights into leadership, training leaders, and the importance of educational leadership through mentorship programs.
He shares how mentors opened doors throughout his life by demonstrating tough love, which forced him to expect more from himself both personally and professionally. David pays this experience forward by demanding excellence through the mentorship programs provided at Morehouse College. In his continuing effort to support HBCU’s, David also became a founding partner of the student freedom initiative, which creates flexible ways for minority students to pay for their education and not be saddled with debt. David also discusses how Morehouse College students are consistently taught to act like leaders by speaking up, and to be thoughtful and passionate when they do.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
David Anthony Thomas (born 1956) is an American psychologist, expert on organizational behavior, and academic administrator who currently serves as the 12th president of Morehouse College, a historically Black men's college in Atlanta, GA.
From 2017 to 2018, he was the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Prior, Thomas served as Dean and William R. Berkley Chair of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.
Thomas was a professor of business administration at Harvard University, from 1990 to 2011, where he rose to direct the school's Organizational Behavior Unit and held the Fitzhugh chair. He was a Senior Associate Dean and Director of Faculty Recruitment from 2005 to 2008. Before joining the faculty at Harvard in 1990, Thomas was an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1986 to 1990.
Thomas is seen as an expert on organizational behavior, having extensively researched and published on the topic of managing diversity in the workplace. Dr. Thomas has co-authored two books: Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (Harvard Business Press, 1999) and Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County (Harvard Education Press, 2009). He has written more than 60 case studies and articles for academic journals and practitioner publications.
Follow David Thomas on Twitter, or Linkedin.
Clips from this Episode
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to “Leadership Matters” on SiriusXM Radio. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with the president of Morehouse College, my good friend Dave Thomas. On the morning of May 19, 2019, I sat a few feet from our guest today on stage at the commencement ceremony for Morehouse’s graduating class. I'm a proud board member of the Board of Trustees, and as we sweat through the 100 degree Atlanta weather that day, we witnessed a little bit of history as Robert Smith, a businessman and philanthropist, pledged to cover the student debt loan of the entire class and their families. It was, I believe, President Thomas's Second commencement ceremony, I think?
David Thomas
My second.
Alan Fleischmann
Your second commencement ceremony, and it thrust him into the national spotlight. But this was a long overdue recognition for President Thomas who has, without fanfare, built a career as one of America's most important thinkers and academic leaders. With a trophy chest of degrees from Yale College from Yale and Columbia University, President Thomas has been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Harvard University, and Georgetown University. And in 2017, he became the 12th President of Morehouse College, the home of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. On a personal note, as I mentioned, being honored to serve on his board of trustees. I've had the privilege to see Dr. Thomas's leadership up close. When he became president Morehouse, he was inheriting an institution with a remarkable history, tremendous importance to our country. And almost some of the very biggest challenges of any college could have, many of them financial. Part of it was also that people didn't know of Morehouse that much anymore. And they looked at it and past tense rather than in present tense and future tense. But that's no more. He has handled these challenges brilliantly, positioning Morehouse for a future as brilliant as its past. So it's my pleasure to welcome in good friend, a great leader, a CEO, and someone who can speak to so many issues that we're in a time president Dave Thomas at Morehouse College. So Dave, I am so happy you're with us today.
David Thomas
Alan, it is great to be here with you.
Alan Fleischmann
You are amazing. On this show, we get wonderful listeners, all kinds of leaders, aspiring leaders, current leaders, CEOs, and they're very active and are looking to really get the story. You know, the essence of somebody personally and a lot of their wisdom that comes from their experiences. But I want to start with you. Going back to the early life, the making of Dave Thomas, let's start with your parents. When I speak with successful executives, one thing that comes up almost always is that the foundation of their success or the adversity they had to overcome is either with one very supportive parent, or two if you're lucky, or maybe not having supportive parents, honestly. But it sounds like, in your case, you had very supportive parents and I just want to get a sense of the early years of Dave Thomas. What year were you born in, by the way?
David Thomas
I was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1956. Just a few months after the end of the Montgomery boycott, led by Dr. King. About nine years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball. And at the time I was born, no African American had ever achieved any of the positions that I would go on to achieve at any of those schools that you mentioned. And even in the PhD programs that I had gone through. But my great luck in life was that I won the parent lottery. Well, both of my parents were tremendously supportive. And, parenthetically, neither one graduated from high school, but instilled in me and my brothers that we could do anything. And whether it was a lie or not, we believed it. And so, my baby brother–I'm the second of four–he's also a doctor and a professor at a Jesuit university in Chicago. And my two other brothers, one of whom is deceased now, but they were both successful businessmen.
Alan Fleischmann
How close in age are you?
David Thomas
God had mercy on my poor mother: between 1955 and 1959 she had four sons.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, not quiet at home.
David Thomas
Not quiet at home. But it was it was a lot of fun, and built the foundation for everything I've gone on to do in my life.
Alan Fleischmann
You’re a child of the civil rights movement – you've alluded to some of the things that were happening around your time of your birth. If my math is correct, the march took place a few days before your seventh birthday. Right? I think that's right. You were 12 when Dr. King was assassinated, and you've described smelling the Kansas City burning from your backyard, right? How aware were you of what was going on in the world around you and was going around the country as you were growing up?
David Thomas
I was very aware, I was always a kid who loved history. And I actually remember, Martin Luther King coming and speaking at the Municipal Auditorium, in Kansas City, Missouri, I probably would have been around 1964. And my parents taking me and my brothers after church, down to the Municipal Auditorium, where he was speaking. And I remember being mesmerized. And from that moment on, read everything I could about Dr. Martin Luther King. And that's how I decided I was going to go to Morehouse.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh, that's right.
David Thomas
He had gone to Morehouse. And I didn't know anybody who had gone to college. So I decided I would go to Morehouse.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I know that the story in that, because you ended up not going to Moorehouse. You wanted to go to Morehouse, but you didn’t get to go.
David Thomas
Because Morehouse did not give me a scholarship. And I went to a school that most of the world had heard of, but very few people in my community had. And that was Yale. And they gave me a full ride.
Alan Fleischmann
Hard to say no to that.
David Thomas
Hard to say no to that. And you know, the reality was that in 1974, Yale needed people who looked like me. And Morehouse had an abundance of them. And at Morehouse, I didn't clear the bar for full ride. But at Yale I did.
Alan Fleischmann
What's amazing, the full circle of your life and the journey, which you're going to get to and how you went back there. But in the 70s you also did something quite unusual as well. I mean, for probably anybody that you grew up with as well, I imagine. You went and studied abroad in France during high school. How’d that happen?
David Thomas
Even though I may regret saying it when other people are listening to this, but because it's you, Alan, I'll just tell you the real story. My girlfriend broke up with me my junior year in high school. Like many men over the years, I decided to go join the French Foreign Legion. And actually a teacher at the school suggested I applied for this scholarship. And it was literally on the day that I got my Dear John letter and I went in applied. And the rest is history.
Alan Fleischmann
Where in France were you?
David Thomas
I was in a small town called Ortiz at the foot of the Pyrenees and about 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. And it was a fabulous place to be for a guy who had never gotten on an airplane before I headed to France.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you live with a family?
David Thomas
I lived with a family. I think there were two other Americans in my town, they played basketball. And I went there, and I had not studied French, and no one spoke English.
Alan Fleischmann
It must have been amazing. I've lived abroad at different times. And I always felt like and feel like the no matter how international I feel or how international my family feels, I become an ambassador from the United States, because people challenge everything American to you. I imagine, in those years in particular, you were representing an American point of view everywhere. But you also representing Black America, I imagine. Because there probably were not too many people of color in the village or town or the area that you went to school, and the diversity probably wasn't as great back then in France, right?
David Thomas
No, that's absolutely right. And I learned a lot in France that I think helped me manage the other corridors that I would go to where there were not a lot of people like me. One was, when I was in France, until I opened my mouth, most people thought I was from one of the former French colonies.
Alan Fleischmann
They were expecting you to speak French.
David Thomas
They were expecting me to speak French. And then, when I would go to places like Paris, or I had friends that I met who were at universities in southern France where I lived, and they would find out I was an American, then I became a representative of American imperialism. And the lesson I learned is that people make up a story for you that is not your story. And what can throw us off is when we start responding to other people's stories about us as if it's true.
Alan Fleischmann
That is actually extraordinarily deep. What you just said, I've never thought about that. But I'm in the reputation business. I feel like in much of what I do, working with CEOs and leaders, it is so true, it's almost like you can be passive and let people define you. Or you can proactively, and maybe even preemptively, define yourself. But don't let people come in with the idea of “I know you” even if it's subconscious, that's your point. That's actually quite deep.
David Thomas
Yeah. And, also, don't let it penetrate you in a way that you start to act as if that is your story.
Alan Fleischmann
Push back. redefine.
David Thomas
Don't lose yourself.
Alan Fleischmann
Because it's so easy to get sucked into conversations where you're almost want to be a pleaser, where you're nodding, “Okay, that is right, I can say that, I can feel that, I can do that.”
David Thomas
And, and sometimes, the story actually feels affirming for you. So imagine a young black man in 1974. No one ever spoke to me as if I represented America, and all of a sudden I’m in a country where I represent America.
Alan Fleischmann
And you were there for for a whole year?
David Thomas
I was there for an entire year, 12 months.
Alan Fleischmann
How is your French when you return? And I'm curious, how is your French today?
David Thomas
My French when I returned? It was a quite good. I basically spoke French like a Frenchman. So when I went to Yale and took French, the teachers, they love talking to me because I talk like people talk in France and they hated my papers because they were grammatically totally incorrect.
Alan Fleischmann
Because they were verbal, not written.
David Thomas
Right. And when I go back to France, it all comes back. If I'm in France for two days, I don't read anything English. I try to speak to everybody in French. And by the time I'm three days in, you know, I'm as good as any American on the street.
Alan Fleischmann
Are you in touch with some of the friends you made there and the family you're staying with at all?
David Thomas
I am no longer in touch with the family. But I am in touch with some of the friends I made there.
Alan Fleischmann
Cool, I love that. I’m curious if it’s the same school counselor who advised you to take advantage of this, but when you came back to the US you applied and obviously were admitted to Yale University. You said you weren't a shoo-in. But it was one of your school counselors and said, “You should really apply.” Tell me a little bit about her and her role in your life? And is she the same counselor that told you to go to France or a different person?
David Thomas
No, she was not the same counselor who told me to go to France. And in fact, until I turned out to be the student who was going to France, this counselor hadn't paid much attention to me. And then she met my mother. And I think sort of said, well, fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. So this guy must have more potential at something. And she had also been the counselor who was responsible for every Black man–and before me, there were four Black men–who had gone to Yale, in the history of the college from Kansas City. And she had been the counselor of three of the four.
Alan Fleischmann
That's incredible.
David Thomas
And and she was about to retire. And insisted that I and a guy who is one of my best friends to this day, apply to Yale because she wanted to get one more Yale man before she hung up her counseling notebook. And so with my mother's help, they engineered me applying from France to Yale.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And then after Yale, what? Well, I shouldn't skip over Yale–that’s a pretty impressive four years. There were many things, I'm sure, that were transformational for you at Yale. But anything you'd want to share from the Yale experience?
David Thomas
You know, yeah. I had two Yale experiences: my graduate experience and my undergraduate experience, and they were total opposites. In my undergraduate experience, I was very involved politically. I was head of the Black Student Alliance, I was involved in the divest South Africa movement, which was in its early stages then in the 1970s. I was very involved in an anti-colonial resistance movements and supporting those. And I got a great education at Yale, and I learned as an undergraduate about power. What I realized in hindsight, matter of fact, on my graduation day, how alienated my experience was at Yale, and that it was related to being Black at Yale. And you just take, for example, that I did not develop one close relationship with a professor. And now I'm at Morehouse. And whenever I talk to an alumni, every one of them has a story about there being a transformational relationship with a professor that accounts for the success that they think they've experienced in the world. Fast forward: to everyone's surprise, I came back to Yale to do my PhD and had the exact opposite experience. I had wonderful mentors who believed in me. I saw what it looks like when people believe in you because they treat you tougher than the people who don't in demanding excellence from you. And that sets you up to have those expectations for yourself. Whether other people do or not when you go forward into the world.
Alan Fleischmann
And was your feeling also that you have got to be successful for them too, because they invested so much in you?
David Thomas
I guess the “for them” part was living up to their expectations. Yeah, I didn't want to disappoint them. You know, without at least doing everything I could do to prove that they were wrong. You know, because sometimes their expectations fel a bit beyond the mountaintop. But I said, “Okay, I'm gonna do my best so that if I don't make it, they'll see that they were just wrong.” But you know, I got to at least climb the mountain. If I don't make it to the top. They'll know I tried as hard as I could.
Alan Fleischmann
After a year, you earned an impressive collection of degrees. You also made a master's in organizational philosophy from Columbia. A master's in philosophy from Yale. And then a doctor philosophy from Yale. As you were achieving these rather extraordinary credentials–I mean they really are, each one of them is pretty amazing–one after another, did you have a good sense of where your education would take you professionally? At what point did you know that you wanted a career path in academia, for example.
David Thomas
I knew I wanted a career path that would include academia from the time I went into the PhD program, the doctoral program. What I didn't anticipate was that that path would be through business schools. So when I came out of my PhD program, I applied to every top tier school of public policy and education in the country. And none of them invited me for an interview. And I applied to Top Tier Business Schools. Because I had gotten my PhD through the Yale School of Management. And I got invited to interview everywhere I applied except for two places, one of which was Harvard, where I later became a full professor and senior associate dean. And you know. But I knew I wanted to have academia as part of what I would do professionally.
Alan Fleischmann
So the first thing with Harvard was a no, then you went to the University of Pennsylvania, right? You were at Wharton pretty young, actually, as an assistant professor, and then when you went to Harvard you became a full professor?
David Thomas
When I got there, I started at the bottom: assistant professor, and worked my way up to full professor and then chaired professor, which is the top of the professoriate.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I always say, Dave, and tell me if I'm right–I always say that I've been someone who lives in the worlds of private, public and civil society. Politics has not been foreign to me either. And when people say, “Oh, I want to go into academia, because I don't want to do politics.” I'm always left breathless. Because if I had to pick the most political environment on the planet, it's probably a university campus. And when you think about it, at a university–you were at Harvard–as you're going up the ranks, you had to prove you had the intellectual rigor, because the snobbery and the intensity on that level is probably off the charts. Especially where you were at, I imagine it was even more challenging. And then you had to be politically savvy. So it's the IQ/EQ double, so it really does speak to what you ended up doing that you had to develop and become quite proficient in both your IQ and EQ, I imagine. And then you were breaking down barriers as you were going, so I imagined you were getting it from all sides and was curious the politics, the intellect–you had to prove yourself probably even more so than the average young man in pursuit.
David Thomas
I think that's right. Because you just take, for example, I can remember at Wharton, a faculty member who became a close friend of mine, he was about 10 years older. We were working out one day and he says to me, “You know, it's really amazing.” I said, “What's that?” He said, “How well you've done here.” Because the year I got hired, there had been a racial incident at the Wharton School. And so the assumption was that the school felt they had to hire some black faculty, because they only had one, and nobody knew who he was. And so even though I had all those degrees that you described, the view of some of my colleagues was I was hired because the school was trying to cosmetically cover over a racial problem. And at the same time the thing I've learned, and I write about this, is if you love what you do, then some of that friction that may come from race or sexism, or name whatever it is, it's the price of admission, because you love what you do. And whether I was at Wharton, or Harvard, or Georgetown, my great blessing in life, professionally, is I've woken up every day and loved what I was doing.
Alan Fleischmann
And along the way–and I know this for a fact without even having to ask you–you became a mentor of many, because I know you collect young people, always. And then I imagine, you know, they're their mentors that you've acquired that you collected along the way. You know, who saw you as someone that they wanted to push as well. So you had it from both?
David Thomas
Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting thing here is, I basically am known for three bodies of work intellectually, and one of them is on mentoring. And that part of my work, I look back on it, and it's autobiographical. I've been blessed at every state of my adulthood. To have people who acted as mentors and sponsors. And who believed in me opened doors for me. And importantly, and this is true in places like the ones where I've traveled, they were honest with me.
Alan Fleischmann
And they told you, they told you things that you normally wouldn't have heard from somebody else?
David Thomas
The kinds of things that get in the way of young black professionals, is people often aren’t honest with them.
Alan Fleischmann
In what way?
David Thomas
They don't tell you just straight up: “This is not good.” They say: “What I believe you can do better.” When you do get the not good. It's not with a message. I'm telling you this because I believe you can do better. They also aren't often honest about some of the softer things that can create difficult conversations. Things that have to do with style, self presentation. They don't want to seem like they're being biased. So they don't mention it. But it matters in the margins. When you're playing a high stakes game. Where you know, the thing that I can tell you about Harvard Business School is there's no one I know who's ever been hired there who was not smart enough. So what stood in between them doing as well as I did? It was not smarts. And that's where good honest coaching and mentoring comes into play. Many of my mentors will tell you that at the end of the day, I actually did not take their advice. But they were so clear about their advice that I knew what I had to do if I was not going to take it.
Alan Fleischmann
Love that. In other words, giving you advice is what made you know what you're not going to do as much as what you wanted to do.
David Thomas
Yeah, right.
Alan Fleischmann
And that muscle probably got stronger as time went on. Well, you actually were at Harvard, and, obviously, you joined Georgetown, where many people I know knew you for a while as the Dean of the business school. And that must have been a big transition, also, because you went from being a teacher to a leader. Not that you weren't leading before. You certainly were associate dean. But to be the dean. And then I would say “the dean” in a big town, where people want to know you. That must have been a big transition for you as as well. And it doesn't happen by accident. So I'm just curious about whether that transition was natural for you at that point, or did it take some work?
David Thomas
Yeah, it was natural.
Alan Fleischmann
You were ready.
David Thomas
I was ready. And it may be too much information for your listeners. But the reality was that many people thought I was going to be the Dean of the Harvard Business School. The beauty contest ran. And I did not win. A great guy won, who was my best friend on the faculty. So I totally got the decision. Nitin Nohria who, for the past 10 years (he just stepped down) has been an amazing Dean for the Harvard Business School on just about every dimension. But, you know, it was very clear to me that I was ready for an institutional role. And it was also the case that I had turned down a number of opportunities and Georgetown came along. And the reality was when I accepted Georgetown, they were ranked 33, among National Business Schools. And many people said to me, because I've been offered everything but the deanship to stay at the Harvard Business School. Because my friend was dean. And many people said to me, why why would you go to Georgetown, you could go so many other places. And isn't it better to be the sous chef, on the mothership, then go be the chef on a ship that nobody's heard of in the business world, people have heard of Georgetown for many things. But when, at least 10 years ago, when you thought of Georgetown, you didn't think business. But what I saw at Georgetown was an almost pure alignment between my personal values. And the Jesuit values of Georgetown: men and women for others is about service. The modulus which means “the more.” Asking for more, so you can do more for the world. Dedicating your work to the greater glory. And Catholic greater glory of God. But to me, it's the greater glory of what defines our humanity. So I said, “If I go to a place like that, that's a business school, Right? There's no contested terrain.” Whereas that the Harvard Business School, which I loved, we were still debating whether shareholder value was the most important criteria for judging a CEOs success and the most important obligation that a CEO had. That was all contested. At Georgetown, given the Jesuit values, that's not contested terrain. The question becomes how do you develop the best business executives and minds in the world who can exercise against those values and be extraordinarily successful in our capitalist system? I loved that idea that we could do that.
Alan Fleischmann
There were two things that were ahead of your time. This whole conversation ESG, the debate between shareholder and stakeholder capitalism, that it's not just one stakeholder but you’ve got to care about your employees, you’ve got to care about your community. That's all becoming indoctrinated. Certainly in 2020, 2021, we're talking about a lot. But when you took over the realm–the hill, my guess–at the business school at Georgetown, it probably was still quite avant garde. Just like something else you did. And I know we were talking about this offline before, and you're doing it again: you were among the first dean's, if I'm not mistaken, who created an online curriculum where you actually were encouraging students who could not be on campus to have access to the Georgetown Business School, who normally would never have had access had you not built that. Now, especially during the age of the pandemic, where everything is on zoom–we're getting used to it. But it was pretty visionary, when you think about the fact that an elite university said, “We're going to do online courses. And would that hurt my brand where we were hurting our revenue?” Did you face a lot of resistance? I imagine you did.
David Thomas
Yeah, we faced a lot of resistance and doubting. I really have to give credit to some of the faculty who really brought the idea to me. And, you know, the great thing about being in jobs like mine, is that, you know, including being a dean or president is, if you don't get caught up in you needing to be the person who has the great ideas. But what you focus on is identifying the great ideas and getting behind them, that's how you become successful. And they had identified a great idea. And I asked them every naysayers question, and they had an answer to every question. And I said, “Okay, let's go.” And the first program we created was the Masters of Science and Finance program. Because my view is you always lead from strength. And, you know, Georgetown has a phenomenal track record in finance. If you walked through the corridors of any major finance company, you're going to find a Georgetown graduate, who you didn't know was a Georgetown graduate because he went somewhere else, or she went somewhere else and got their master's degree. And so we built from there, and it defied all expectations, and has actually been part of what's buoyed the school in the last few years when some of our programs have lost enrollment. The online at Georgetown is is really one of the real drivers of the financial health of the business school.
Alan Fleischmann
But the fact that you built it then is pretty amazing. I know, after an exhaustive search, Morehouse College elected you to be its 12th president three years ago. And in taking on that role, you inherited a university, Morehouse College, with a rather extraordinary history and importance in the American story. As qualified as you were to take the reigns and this goes back to the fact that you always wanted to be a student there, as well. That history and your new responsibility must have been overwhelming because, and in all candor, all the experiences you had in Wharton, Yale, Georgetown and Harvard–these were all pretty well known brands where no one was questioning their future. But I imagined that the challenge of knowing the importance of the college, knowing the history, and knowing its relevance and significance in the future, must have been a great, wonderful challenge you took on. Not everybody does that, though. I mean, a lot of people would have said, “Stick to Georgetown, go back to Harvard, hang out at Yale.” But you said, “No, I want to go to Morehouse and I want to be president at Morehouse College. So I'm just curious what was in your thinking, as you were going through the process of interviewing for the job and being selected.
David Thomas
By the way, my friends and mentors were evenly split. Whether I should go to Morehouse or take some of the other opportunities and at that time. Once word was out that I was going to leave Georgetown, I actually got offered the deanship at a top 10 business school that I turned down.
Alan Fleischmann
By the way, what number was Georgetown business school when you left? It was 33 when you started.
David Thomas
33 when I started. When I left, Georgetown's MBA program was 15.
Alan Fleischmann
That's pretty big. So they were evenly split?
David Thomas
Yeah, they were evenly split. And, you know, the pull to Morehouse was a number of things. One, there was the romantic part, which is I wanted to be at Morehouse. And if Morehouse had given me a comparable scholarship…
Alan Fleischmann
You would’ve been there.
David Thomas
I would have been there. And the other piece of it was that the way I think about myself is that I'm not great at any one thing. But what makes me extraordinary is the combination of experiences that I have, that I have been able to show mastery at. Right? Because of my board experience, I have private sector experience. I understand donors and philanthropy. And that's why at Georgetown, I had raised in less than three years over $140 million for for a capital campaign that was basically dead in the water when I arrived. And I also have won the top academic prizes for every body of work I've done. And I thought that was the combination of skills that Morehouse needed. And I think I had proven that I was pretty good at running things. Right? And so anytime you're searching for president, most presidents are great at one or two. But very few come with that combination. And I thought Morehouse needed that combination in its next president if it was going to really address the challenges that it was facing. And I think there's lots of evidence that it proved to be right, that what I brought to Morehouse has really matched the challenges that it was facing. And I think we've made not just progress–the way I describe it is that we've steepened the trajectory and accelerated the pace of Morehouse’s movement in the 21st century toward being among the preeminent colleges and universities in the country.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, it's amazing how I mentioned at the start of the interview here the graduation. And then, literally it blew up the internet and became the most sensational commencement speech of the time and, certainly, probably of all time in many ways.
David Thomas
I would say that it is, as they say in sports, a GOAT: greatest of all time.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I think it's of all time. And I remember it was kind of like being at that was joking with people, it was kind of like being at the Kentucky Derby, or the Preakness, or the Belmont Stakes where people are coming over and whispering in our ears, saying, “We're so and so on social media.” During the entire ceremony, we were realizing that there was something bigger than life happening. And I must have spoken, I felt like, to 1400 journalists in the days that followed it. And you were all over the airwaves and talking about Morehouse. What was so stunning to me was how many people who knew of the glorious past didn't know much about Morehouse at the time, but in the last few years that's not the case. And the last few years, people now know, and I'm so proud of that because I'm on your board. But it's so incredibly important. And obviously, circumstances beyond our control obviously led to that happening as well. But it's not all bad as well. It goes back to things you said earlier: you could have sat back and been watching and passive. Or you could actually step up and say: “This is our time.” And I would argue that it probably speaks to all the experiences you had prior. But you have stepped up. Morehouse, and HBCUs in general–before George Floyd's tragedy and his horrible murder in 2020 when I think a lot of America woke up to a lot that, frankly, a lot of people were fighting for a lot longer before that. You know, it was stunning to me how many people then started to say, “What about HBCUs?” Well, that wouldn’t have been natural if you hadn’t been out there.
David Thomas
Let me just say that Robert Smith's gift, I think, not COVID, is what marked the pivot moment for how people began to reconsider what they understood about the value of historically black colleges and universities. Because no moment that spoke to the excellence of HBCUs and their value had happened in 50 years. That had that kind of global and national projection that made people almost like turn around and say, “Oh, yeah, I know, Morehouse,” and then look to the future and say “There's Morehouse.” Right, and when people pull the past to the future, they say, “Oh, we got it, we we need to invest in that.” And since Robert’s gift, there have been more eight-figure gifts to historically black colleges than in the entire existence of historically black colleges, even when you control for inflation. So the the $1 million that the Rockefellers gave to start Spelman, it would be $1 million in today's dollars–it was about $100,000 back then. Right? More equivalent eight-figure gifts, since Robert gave his gift than in the entire 150 plus year history of HBCUs.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. And I love that. And that's a leadership moment. And I feel so grateful to be there. I know that for him, he'll say that he thought about it. I was at that dinner the night before, that I had with you and with our chairman of the board and with Robert. And we asked that question, “Why is it that not everybody graduates in four years,” I think was the question. And then you brought up the debt. And you said, “It's because they're saddled with debt, and they just can't get through the whole four years.” And I know that is what started to emotionally rock him that night. And then the next day when, as he says when he looked at the eyes of 400 young men and thought of the 400 years from 1619 to 2019. He said, “You know, I can do something about it.” But it changed the way people look at giving, but it also changed the way people look at HBCUs, but it also got into really hardcore issues about debt. And how do you actually liberate the human spirit? And I know that's been a big part of what you've been doing as the president of Morehouse. And I gather, you probably learned that among the elite schools in which you were a leader before, but Morehouse is among the elite colleges in this country. And certainly is among the elite HBCUs. You know, when you think of Spelman, and Morehouse and Howard–I'm sure there are many alums the city they're gonna get mad at me if I don't mention any more. But we all acknowledge that Morehouse is among the best. I'm sure that the financial state of these young people has been a huge part of what you have been tackling as well. I should mention, by the way that you're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And we're having a pretty extraordinary conversation with one of America's great leaders. The president of Morehouse College, an extraordinary academic, extraordinary leader, but I would argue a transformational leader in Dave Thomas that crosses all sectors, because of the kind of work that he does, and continues to do as the CEO of Morehouse College. But I'm curious, you know, as you experience these moments, like with the Robert Smith gift, and then so many pathbreaking gifts, that that followed Roberts gift, it must be an amazing thing for you, because you came into a school that needed help, you came into a college that desperately needed to be reaffirmed, and you took it on.
David Thomas
Yeah, it's been tremendously rewarding. But the way I think about it, Alan, is that I had a very clear view that if Morehouse could very quickly do the things that would give people confidence in us, and then begin to introduce people to the college who could value it. Right, that what we've seen happen would start to happen. And then we had some help from the external environment that probably has accelerated that. But you know, the Robert Smith story is a great one. You came with Robert, actually, in my very first semester. And Robert came, spent a day with our students–he had never been to Morehouse’s campus–and by the time he got to the end of that day, he got the value of what we did, and actually committed a million dollars and a few minutes later said to me that he would help me buy a building that I couldn't afford to build. So he actually gave us $1.5 million, which I think is important for people to understand. Right? Robert Smith didn't show up out of the blue, and do a publicity gathering moment. But he had actually gotten connected to the college. And then with conversations with you and and others, put himself in the frame of mind to ask the question, “What can I do transformatively for this valuable entity?”
Alan Fleischmann
And like you, he had a great deal of admiration for the purpose and, and history of Morehouse College. As a young man, he went to Cornell. He knew about Morehouse, and he had a great deal of affection for what Morehouse represented. But I was on that walk with you. I would say, for me and our relationship, we took a walk with Robert. If you remember, you and I were walking ahead and Robert was talking to a lot of students. You'd barely been president. And we were passing that horrible eyesore of, what is now a park, but was then a building. And Robert stopped you and stopped us and said, “What's going on there,” I think was the question, and “Why is that there.” And you explain the history and that you couldn't afford to buy the parcel, that property. And he immediately said, “Let's do it.” Right. And the other thing which I always say about my experiences, and which I know Robert felt, and what I learned over the time, is that there’s something in the way Morehouse teaches its students. That's really about leadership. It doesn't matter what you're studying, there's a leadership ethos that goes back to something deeper. I've never seen a more impressive group of emerging young leaders as I've seen at Morehouse College.
David Thomas
Yeah. And I've made a task of mine, to study the history of Morehouse College. And that theme of leadership and service, regardless of what profession you pursue, has been in the ethos of this place, since the very first day.
Alan Fleischmann
Because it's not just in the water. It's got to be purposeful. It has to be in the curriculum of what is taught. And it has to be a big part of the mentoring, which I know is a big part of who you are.
David Thomas
Right. It's there. And it literally starts with new student orientation. And new student orientation in Morehouse is really a family affair. You know, I've dropped off three children to college in my time. And it didn't take more than half a day for any of them. You come to Morehouse, and it's a three day affair for parents and students. And by the time parents leave, you know, they walk by me and my wife, because, you know if you met my wife, she's very easy to connect to, so fellow mothers love her. And they say, “we get it.”
Alan Fleischmann
Well, the love of ceremony, I've noted as being a part of the Morehouse family now is huge. The candle, the dark ceremony, the many, many ceremonies. And then I watched these mentors, who challenged these young men to speak beautifully. It's all around the students. There are two things you get when you're around Morehouse. One is that leadership thing I was telling you about that is so different than anywhere else–students who are being taught in so many ways to be leaders, just to speak up and speak out and be as thoughtful and as passionate about what they speak. And the other thing is the alums. And I'm on the board with you, and many, many of the trustees are alums. And every one of them has stories, and every one of them feels passion. That level of commitment, passion is pretty extraordinary as well. But there's something about the mentoring. There's a woman, an older woman, for example, I'm forgetting her name, who makes sure that every young man speaks beautifully and knows exactly where he is. She blew me away.
David Thomas
And all of that, you know what happens over time, right? What happens to these young men is they come as freshmen. The freshmen see the upperclassmen and they aspire to that. And then they make the connection that it's not an accident that these are our alums because they were once me who became them. And now they are who they are, and that's who I want to and should be.
Alan Fleischmann
What is also pretty amazing is, and this goes back to that commencement, Robert also challenged the alums just to get more active. And that became a big part of it, but you've now had the McKenzie Scots and the Reed Hastings as well. You've got now alumni who are stepping up and saying, “We want to be there, part of the financial security. We're investing in these young people.” And then with the death of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. I mean, all this happened in 2020. There's an outpouring of recognition that puts a spotlight on Morehouse and a spotlight on your leadership. So I would love you to, in the next five minutes, if you could walk us through your dreams for 2021. Because now we are at the beginning of the new year and you've been through a pretty turbulent 2020 with the pandemic and with all that has happened to Morehouse.
David Thomas
My dreams for 2021 are really captured underneath four themes that we've set for the college. Realizing our excellenc. It starts with graduating every man of Morehouse, developing the resources and supports to make that happen. And with attracting and developing the best faculty we can. Developing partnerships of purpose. Which really speaks to recognizing that we can't do everything by ourselves that our students need and that the world needs from us. But if we can develop partnerships with individuals like Robert, institutions like foundations, where we partner around a shared set of values, we can leverage the resources of Morehouse to have a huge impact in the world. And then, Morehouse beyond borders. For a 153 years, Morehouse has had an educational model that essentially said, “You come to this precious 66 acre campus, you go through a transformational process sometime between the average age of 18 and 24. We send you out into the world. And that's how the world meets Morehouse.” And now I think we've got to become much more intentional about Morehouse beyond borders, creating ways for people to experience Morehouse who can't come to this 66 acre campus. Making the world aware of the research we do here that speaks to some of the most important and challenging issues facing our time. These issues of racial equity, what's happening to young men of color, global peace. Our Martin Luther King international chapel, led by the Reverend Dean and Professor Lawrence Carter, is one of the central places where conversations about global peace are happening. People know him, but they don't know him as Morehouse. We haven't done a good job of projecting that. And then finally, elevating the mission by transforming our physical campus and engaging in a capital campaign that at a minimum, we'll have to raise $500 million over the course of the next six to seven years. To move us in the direction that we need to be in. Which is in my view, best symbolized by at the undergraduate level, Morehouse becomes need blind. So any student who we admit like a David Thomas, their need will be met commensurate with what they what their families can afford.
Alan Fleischmann
Like David Thomas. If he has to make a choice between a full ride at Yale ve russ wanting to got to Morehouse, he can go to Morehouse.
David Thomas
You can go to Morehouse. And, you know, I come back to themes, you know, like our partnerships a purpose and that we're now one of the founding partners in the student freedom initiative, which is about creating better and more flexible ways for students to pay for their education and not be saddled with debt that drives them away from pursuing their passions.
Alan Fleischmann
And that was all born out of the same commencement with Robert Smith where, okay, let's not leave it here. Let's do something with Morehouse that would be transformational across, certainly initially all HBCUs. But the idea, let's put resources so that students can make choices without the burden of debt.
David Thomas
Right. And we know that there are already other philanthropists studying that model that we're partnering to develop. And I think it'll have legs well beyond HBCUs.
Alan Fleischmann
So for me, as we wrap this up, I just want to mention a couple of things. I get the great joy in life of getting to work with some of the most extraordinary leaders, and I get to pick who I get to work with, and so that's the greatest gift in my life. And go really deep in what makes them tick. And certainly, there are certain qualities that are universal. One of them is that passion, that purpose that you talked about, certainly for leaders for today's times. The other one's insatiable curiosity, and asking questions but not always having the answers. And I think you are the quintessential leader, when it comes to being provocative about the questions that need to be asked, and then challenging partners to work with you in discovering those answers. And, and and knowing that it's up to all of us to answer those questions together. But it is not up to all of us to assume that we know all the answers. And that, I think, is the the David Thomas–it goes back to the mentoring, it goes back to the purpose–but it is your style of leadership. And it's something that is needed in all sectors, frankly. Not just in the world of academia, but certainly in the private sector beyond that, and then public sector and civil society in general. So I just want to acknowledge that, because you have a confidence with humility. There's no arrogance in you, and a passion, as you can hear on this interview today. I'd love to have you back on, Dave, because I think we could talk about some really important societal challenges that we need to deal with and face. It would be fun to even have a conversation where we bring in a couple other folks with us, and really ask those questions that you have, and then get the right people to say let's be part of the answer on air.
David Thomas
I would love that. Thank you for this invitation. I know, both by reputation and personally, many other people who you've had on your show. So I'm just flattered to be kept in this company that you've created.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I'm sure they feel the same way. I certainly do. And I know that everyone listening today feels the same way as well. So thank you. It's one of those things where I wish we had more than an hour. Let's bring you back on. And I’m grateful for all you're doing and just know that I hope that anyone who's listening who wants to get involved with Morehouse College and get to know President Thomas and his leadership team, do not hesitate to reach out because there's a lot of work to be done. So thank you.
David Thomas
Thank you.
