THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160453
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
In an emotional valedictory, departing Chancellor Jimmy R. Jenkins bade farewell to Elizabeth City State University faculty and alumni and said God told him to resign.
``I didn't pick the time,'' Jenkins told 400 supporters at a faculty-staff banquet Monday night. ``God gave me the insight to recognize that the time had come.''
The ECSU chancellor startled loyal supporters when he sent an Aug. 3 letter of resignation from his $95,000-a-year job to C.D. Spangler Jr., president of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
ECSU is one of six predominantly black schools in the 16-campus UNC system.
Jenkins told Spangler that his resignation would be effective Aug. 31, adding he hoped to someday return to the ECSU campus as a teacher.
The chancellor earned a doctorate in biology from Perdue University after graduating from ECSU 30 years ago.
In 12 years as chancellor, Jenkins can look back on a vast and on-going expansion program on the ECSU campus as well as intermittent town-and-gown and faculty squabbles over his occasionally controversial administration.
``He leaves (ECSU) in far better shape than he found it,'' Spangler told the UNC Board of Governors in a note announcing Jenkins' resignation.
Jenkins' broke his silence about the resignation in hour-long remarks Monday at the Kermit White Center banquet where friends and academic associates rose in a standing ovation for the departing chancellor.
Jenkins insisted, by repeated inference, that he was not forced to resign.
And Spangler, in his Aug. 11 statement to the Board of Governors, emphasized that no showdown had occurred between the university president and Jenkins.
In private remarks, Spangler has gone out of his way to put down suggestions that Jenkins' departure from ECSU was in any way tainted.
Since Jenkins submitted his letter of resignation, waves of speculation have swept the ECSU campus.
Rumors have persisted of a climactic dispute with Paul F. Vandergrift Jr., an ex-Marine sent by Spangler months ago to help ramrod the administration at ECSU.
Vandergrift was conspicuously absent from the head table at the staff-faculty banquet and the earlier ``family'' meeting of the same groups in the Jimmy R. Jenkins Science building.
Vandergrift was a top executive for UNC television programming before being dispatched to ECSU and is among those mentioned as a possible interim successor to Jenkins.
Stanley Green, a Raleigh banker who is temporary chairman of the ECSU Board of Trustees, renewed the speculation that has surrounded the unexpected resignation of the chancellor.
``He has not let us down,'' said Green in introducing Jenkins at the Kermit White building dinner party. ``If anyone has let us down, it is the state of North Carolina.'' There was no elaboration.
Earlier, Green said that he felt that Jenkins' letter ``speaks for itself.''
When Jenkins rose to speak Monday night to faculty, alumni and Albemarle political leaders, he quickly captured his audience with a folksy account of his poor-boy childhood.
``I leave this place with a sense of confidence 34 years after I first set foot here as a freshman,'' said Jenkins.
Tears were visible on many cheeks as Jenkins described the difficult challenges he faced as he went about ``the mission of helping young people.''
``Sometimes you have to shake things up; sometimes the end justifies the means,'' said Jenkins. ``And I made it crystal clear that I would try to meet each new challenge.
``And finally I realized that my time had come; that it was time for new leadership.
``I didn't pick the time - God gave me the insight to recognize the time.''
Jenkins thanked old friends among the faculty members and administrators at the banquet.
``For them it was always more than a job,'' he said, ``They knew - with me - that Elizabeth City State University will be a place that creates leaders.''
There were few dry eyes among the friends as Jenkins concluded:
``I have run a good race; fought a good fight; finished the course.
``And I'd do it all over again in exactly the same way.'' by CNB