“For the first time in my life, what I see playing out doesn’t look like progress.”
These words encapsulate the conditions of the nation as F. DuBois Bowman marks just over 100 days in as the 13th president of Morehouse College.
A 1992 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the storied men’s HBCU, Bowman’s experience with the college transcends his four years as a student. He’s been an engaged alum for over three decades, serving on advisory boards and leading mentorship programs at Morehouse and Spelman College. In 2019, Bowman won the college’s Bennie Trailblazer, named after one of his predecessors, Benjamin E. Mays. Along with his wife and Spelman alum Cynthia Bowman, he’s also the parent of a 2024 Morehouse graduate and a current sophomore.
Prior to accepting the new role, Bowman served as dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and held leadership roles at Columbia University and Emory University.
Bowman has entered the president’s office on Gloster Hall’s third flood during challenging times. But he asserts confidently that Morehouse College is and will continue to be a space where “students will leave … ready to compete, ready to go into spaces and demonstrate their value.”
Bowman leads a college steeped in a long history of social justice. That legacy was called upon this summer when 2018 alum Alex Maganda was detained by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents in Texas, despite having lived and worked in the U.S. for over 25 years. Under Bowman’s leadership, a representative tells Capital B Atlanta: “The College has been in regular communication with his loved ones. Upon initial notice of his detainment, we engaged an alum who is also a highly regarded immigration attorney and he has taken on his case.”
During an interview discussing his first 100 days in office, Capital B Atlanta asked Bowman about pressing student concerns, the current political climate’s impact on recruiting, mental health support, and plans for campus improvements. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Capital B Atlanta: As an alum and parent, what parts of your mindset about the Morehouse did you have to restructure when entering the role of president?
F. DuBois Bowman: Returning as president, I have really valued maintaining all of those perspectives. It’s less of a shift in terms of changing from one thing to the other, and more just adding an additional perspective as president. You mentioned my attendance here as a student. That shapes and really, I would say, anchors my experience about what Morehouse is and what it does through my lived experience.
I’m here cherishing something that I loved, and then being able to support my sons through their journeys. So that, to me, establishes a deep affection for the college. Now coming back as president, that affection is still there. In many ways, that’s what drew me back. What I have to layer on top of that is now more of a strategic approach to strengthening the institution. So that evolution is a layering of the deep love and affection and value for the institution with a strategic leadership lens to try to best direct the institution for strength in the future.
What are some of the things from your previous experience that you were able to implement early in your tenure? What qualities or values have you emphasized?
Much of what I bring back is from my professional experience, but much of what I bring back is just my experience as a person, and things that I value personally in terms of leadership. One quality for me that is really important is engagement and connected with that is listening. I think there are great ideas that can come from many places.
I would use my grandmother, for example, who had an eighth grade education, but is one of the smartest people I know in terms of wisdom. She had an eighth grade education because that is all that she could do at the time in the system that she was living in. But in terms of wisdom and intelligence, it was still there. As I’m in different spaces and different rooms, I want to make sure that I’m tapping into that knowledge. Coming back to the college, I have been thoughtful and intentional about trying to draw that wisdom from the lived experiences of our students, our staff, our faculty, and have really appreciated having any opportunity to do so.
Morehouse College President F. DuBois Bowman outlined his plans to create additional student housing as well as a new student center. (Isaiah Turman)
With the Trump administration pushing companies and colleges to end diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, do you see that impacting the number of entities coming to recruit students at Morehouse?
For the first time in my life, what I see playing out doesn’t look like progress for those who are underrepresented and have had various opportunities in the past. But it’s not new. So afraid? No. Is there a need to understand the moment, to respond to the moment, to ensure that we are still a vital pipeline to cultivating talent that is sorely needed for the betterment of society? Morehouse will continue to do that without question.
We just have to ensure that we are adapting as needed to identify the most promising students. Some of that may be reflected by GPA and test scores in high schools. Some of it may not. But yet, the promise and talent is there. Morehouse is a place where they can come. They can learn. They can transform into young men and talented individuals to go out and make a positive impact in the world. So I’m not afraid. I think about what Morehouse has done — what Morehouse will do in this moment in time is really prepare students to compete in an inclusive meritocracy. Morehouse really has always done that. We need agents of change on the outside to ensure that the meritocracy is actually inclusive. But our students will leave here ready to compete, ready to go into spaces and demonstrate their value in the workforce and then society more broadly.
Can you provide any updates on the ongoing construction on campus? What are the parts of these projects that you believe will best serve Morehouse students of the future?
Morehouse, the physical footprint, is in need of modernizing and really transforming. There’s great work going on currently. There is a new residence hall that is under construction, a new living and learning center for our students that should be completed in July of 2026, ready for occupancy to support the arrival of students next academic year. We’re really excited about that. It’ll provide a great resource to our campus.
We are also planning to add to the modernization of the campus with the new campus center. It’s a slightly longer term project. We are actively fundraising to support that. It would go right on Brown Street, in the heart of campus. That will be a convening space for students that will support co-curricular activities. There will be spaces for students to rent out and support aspects of student life, whether it’s student organizations or other things. There will be dining in that space. I envision some merchandising in that space as well. So, what I picture is really a vibrant space for students to mingle, interact and connect.
“I think about what Morehouse has done — what Morehouse will do in this moment in time is really prepare students to compete in an inclusive meritocracy,” Bowman said. (Isaiah Turman)
Thirdly, I’ll mention a project that we’re working toward that would be a joint residence hall with Spelman College. That is moving along as well in the planning phases. These things take many, many years, in fact, to plan and to come up with the funding structure, but we are indeed proceeding with that.
The new residence hall that’s being constructed and the new public-private partnership jointly with Spelman will add immense capacity to the college. We anticipate an increase in at least 400 beds available to support our students who desire to live on campus.
We’re also thinking about the surrounding community. There are a number of projects that are happening in the surrounding communities here on the southwest side of Atlanta. We’re in conversations with the city and with developers of One West End (an effort to increase mixed-income housing and small businesses within the area) that’s seeking to transform the current footprint of the West End.
There have been a number of safety alerts — everything from uninvited visitors to threats to the physical campus — sent to the community recently. What is the administration doing to address these concerns?
Safety is a top priority for the college. It is paramount that we create an environment where our students are able to come and live and learn without concerns about their safety and well-being. With our campus police, we’re taking measures to increase lighting, increase cameras, and increase patrols around the campus area. We are also partnering with the Atlanta University Center Consortium because, while we are focused on Morehouse, we are adjacent to other institutions that have shared goals: protecting students.
One of the examples that you mentioned was a threat directly to Clark Atlanta University, rather than Morehouse, but it impacted our students as well. We’re partnering with the other AUCC schools. We are partnering with the city of Atlanta as well. So those are a few things that we’re doing.
We’re continuing to educate our students as well. There’s another important component to make sure that our students remain aware and are making choices that will help promote their own safety, and the safety of their possessions will be another part of it. There is a balance that I view of the location of Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, Spelman, Morehouse School of Medicine in communities where we also want to contribute to the well-being and vibrant nature of the communities that we live in. So we think about how to protect our students in ways that also help to improve the conditions outside the boundaries of campus.
“We see issues of anxiety. We see issues of depression show up on our campus with excellent students who are very capable of succeeding, but we have to make sure we figure out how to support them in their journeys.”
F. DuBois Bowman
The Morehouse community has dealt with a spate of suicides and student deaths in recent years, and there’s been an alarming increase in suicide risk for Black youth in Georgia, especially males. What are your plans to address mental health needs for students?
One of the things we’ve seen shifting very rapidly is the demand for increased mental health support. That is on college campuses, but in society more broadly. It’s top of mind for me, coming to the presidency from a quantitative background housed in public health, where I do and have done work on things like major depressive disorder and other mental health illnesses. So figuring out, in a well-rounded way, how to support a broad set of mental health needs is something that is a requirement for the college. We see issues of anxiety. We see issues of depression show up on our campus with excellent students who are very capable of succeeding, but we have to make sure we figure out how to support them in their journeys. I think it’s our responsibility at Morehouse, and in the higher education landscape more generally, to think about how best to do so.
We are taking strides and investing in mental health support on campus. There was recently a $1 million gift that came in to help the work that we’re doing in that space. One of the things that I have been appreciative of — while we’ve seen an increase of prevalence of mental health issues on campus — is also an increased awareness and openness to conversation. Student-to-student, student-to-staff, student-to-faculty, and that, I think, is very healthy because we don’t want barriers. We don’t want stigma to [be] a barrier for people seeking support and even identification and recognition of some challenges might emerge, first in a residence hall or in a classroom, so that broader awareness becomes an important part of our efforts.
Morehouse alums and students promote advocacy and social justice in the Black community and the world at large. As the new leader of the institution, do you feel pressure in this historic moment? Where does your mind go in these times?
I don’t regard what you’re describing as pressure. I think about all of our experiences. I’ll address your question through a leadership experience: We are confronted with the moment that we’re in. Your years as a student will be defined by a broader set of things going on in society. Talking to alumni, even since assuming the presidency, some of their college experiences came on the heels of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That was a defining moment that really shaped the course of their education. For me as a leader, the question is how to best support and secure the institution, not just for preservation, but to reach excellence and its highest aspirations. How do we support our students so that they have the awareness, understanding, and the skills to go out and contribute to the betterment of society? I accept it as an exciting moment, rather than pressure or daunting, that is just a recognition of the importance of the moment that we live in.
“As a service to society, I think about how I can use Morehouse as a vehicle to contribute in a positive way to society.”
F. DuBois Bowman
The average tenure for a president in the college’s history is 13 years. Most of those presidents left with one or two major changes to the college. What are some of the long-term goals you have been exploring?
I have been asked the question, “What do I want my legacy to be?” How I think about that and how I respond to that reflects my approach to leadership. I view leadership at its core as a service. In this case, as a service to the institution, as a service to our students — our current students and our future students and their families. As a service to society, I think about how I can use Morehouse as a vehicle to contribute in a positive way to society.
I think the physical footprint of campus is something that I anticipate will transform under my presidency. We are at an interesting time in society, and therefore in higher education, where things are evolving rapidly in many ways, including technological advancements. The formula that has made Morehouse strong in the past is not guaranteed to be the formula that makes Morehouse strong in the future. Being on the front end of that change to be able to reposition the college for strengths for years to come is something that may be one of those defining areas of progress in retrospect. But right now, I just think about the exciting possibilities for the work.
Noah Cathey is a sophomore journalism major attending Morehouse College. Photographer Isaiah Turman is a business administration major attending Morehouse College. This article is part of Capital B Atlanta’s journalism partnership with HBCU reporters.
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