It’s my extreme pleasure to introduce Charlie Nelms, whom I worked with 40 years ago when we were members of IU Northwest’s Student Activities Fund Trustees and whose leadership style I greatly respect. In his fascinating memoir “From Cotton Fields to University Leadership” Nelms describes his six-year stint at IUN beginning in 1978 as director of University Division and then as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. The experience served as a springboard for his later becoming chancellor of IU East in Richmond, as administrators in Bloomington recognized his leadership potential. While researching a history of IUN, I interviewed several people who worked with Charlie and discussed his positive attitude, work ethic, consensus-building skills, and community involvement. Barbara Cope, who later became Dean of Student Services, told me:
I was on the committee that hired Charlie. The evening before we were to interview him, this bearded guy in a sports shirt walked in asking all sorts of questions. I thought he was a prospective student and got him brochures and answered his inquiries. The next day, he appeared in a suit and tie. When I did a double take, he laughed. He was quite charming and effective in giving people little hints to go out and do what he wanted. He wrote beautifully and was an excellent speaker.
Ernest Smith, who succeeded him as Director of University Division, remembered, “Nelms trusted me to do my job and wasn’t constantly looking over my shoulder. I appreciated that.”
Admissions director Bill Lee recalled: “A home-boy from Arkansas, Charlie reminded you of a good social worker. He could get you to see if you made a mistake without browbeating you. He was a good community man, serving on the Gary school board and with the Urban League.”
Counselor Mary Bertoluzzi remembered: “At first impression Charlie seemed laid-back, but people under him learned not to fall for that. He wanted things done correctly and ASAP. If you made a mistake, it was acceptable once, but he wanted you to find out what went wrong and fix it. You didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.”
In his memoir Charlie doesn’t mince words about how racially polarized Northwest Indiana was 40 years ago or about faculty and administrators who were short-sighted and petty and, in at least one case, as Charlie put it, “a closet racist.” On the other hands, he gives credit to several people with IUN connections who were mentors, including: Jack Buhner, IUN’s first director, whom he worked under while a Lilly Fellow at IUPUI and who supported creation of IUN Black Studies program, just the second in the nation; second, Charlie’s predecessor as head of Student Services Bob Morris, whom he described as a consummate student-services professional, passionate and caring; Biologist and Arts and Sciences Chair F.C. Richardson, who clued him in about political realities on campus and in the Calumet Region; and, finally, Trustee James Dye, whose company built Mansards Apartments, where Charlie lived, and whose foundation has provided scholarships for well over a thousand needy IUN students. Without further ado, let’s get on with the show and, as the subtitle of his book states, focus “All Eyes on Charlie.”
Charlie began by holding up a jar of cotton harvested on land his family owned as a reminder of his roots and values he received from his parents. His father was a community organizer who went out by night to encourage neighbors to register to vote. His mother often told him that if he got a good education, no one could take it away from him. He praised the dedicated teachers at the school he attended, one of 5,300 funded in the Deep South by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald for Black students. Nonetheless, as Charlie stated, all books and supplies except the chalk were hand-me-downs from white schools.
Charlie explained that at times it was a painful experience writing the book as he recounted his brother being unfairly incarcerated and a friend gunned done by a deputy sheriff for allegedly making an inappropriate comment to a White girl. Even so he decided not to get wrapped up in his anger but rather be passionate about what he cared about. He meant it to be a story about hope, faith, and hard work and added this proverb enunciated by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” In additional to crediting the mentors I had mentioned in my introduction, he paid special tribute to Milton Mozell, his vocational agriculture teacher in tenth through twelfth grade, who convinced him that he had the potential to succeed in college. He also cited mayor Richard Hatcher as an inspirational leader and IU presidents Herman B. Wells and John Ryan, who fought institutional racism at Bloomington and its regional campuses. He concluded the excellent presentation by promising to return to the campus after it returned to normal and interact with students and faculty.
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