Remembering Dr. Ron D. Wright, Delgado's Seventh Chancellor

January 06, 2020

Dr. Ron D. Wright, the seventh chancellor of Delgado Community College, died Dec. 28, 2019. He was 72 and had battled health problems for some time. A memorial service for Dr. Wright will take place Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, at the Gray Road Church of Christ in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Throughout his professional career, Wright fostered the belief that economic development must be an equal link with human capital development. For Wright, the lesson was a personal one. As a high school student, he knew a college education was expected of him, but he did not expect higher education to have such an influencing power on his future. As a student at a community college, Wright discovered the opportunities that were available to him. He found, through his relationships with faculty and staff, that he could be a learner and perhaps even a scholar.

As he progressed through his academic career--from associate degree to doctorate--he attributed much of his success to learning environments that nurtured individuals and lifted the least prepared as well as the accomplished.

Wright’s career in community colleges began at Delaware Technical Community College, where he was an instructor and chair of the Department of Human Services and Social Sciences from 1974 to 1984. Soon after earning his doctoral degree from Cornell University in 1987, he returned to two-year education as associate dean for academic affairs at the Community College of Baltimore. One year later, he was promoted to vice president for academic and student affairs. In 1991, Wright was appointed executive vice president at Delaware County Community College in Media, Pennsylvania.

At Delaware County, a multi-campus college of 11,000 students, he was responsible for all aspects of college operations, including development of instructional programs, curriculum review and faculty evaluation, fiscal management, student services and enrollment management.

Wright’s administrative philosophy emphasized community building. In each of his leadership posts, he brought together institutional stakeholders and urged them to honor their collective intelligence and fully utilize their collective creativity. In doing so, Wright proved that a learning environment, its processes and systems, can be created, and the college community will naturally refocus its resources on student outcomes.

Wright believed community colleges must not only raise individual students to their potential, they must lift families and advance whole generations.

Before his appointment in 2008 as chancellor of Delgado Community College, Wright served as president of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College from 1997 to 2007. During his tenure, Cincinnati State grew enrollment and expanded its physical presence, including: establishing a Workforce Development Center to serve as the hub for corporate and industry training programs; opening an Advanced Technology & Learning Center to house the Midwest Culinary Institute; and opening a campus at Cincinnati West Airport as the home of the college’s aviation maintenance technology programs.

Wright was born October 28, 1946 in Chester, Pennsylvania. He attended Booker T. Washington Elementary School in Chester, and in 1964 he graduated from Ridley High School in Folsom, Pa. He attended Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pa., where he received a liberal arts degree, excelled in basketball and served as president of the freshman and sophomore classes. After he and 17 other African American students were expelled from Oklahoma Christian College because of civil disobedience, he graduated from Pepperdine University, where he received a bachelor of arts in applied psychology in 1970. He continued pursuing his education with a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Antioch University. Wright went on to attain a Ph.D. in public policy analysis and management from Cornell University.

On the morning of March 6, 1969, students at Oklahoma Christian College (now University) flooded the administration building with hopes of speaking to President James O. Baird.

Among their grievances was the recent dismissal of 14 students, most of them black, accused of violating curfew rules by attending what the administration called an all-night party. The students believed that the punishment was racially motivated, as white students caught staying out too late were not immediately removed from the college.

Instead of meeting with the students, Baird told them they had five minutes to leave, or else they would be arrested. While a handful of students close to graduation or with difficult family situations decided to leave, 18 stayed, including Wright.

As staffers prepared to call police, Wright pleaded with Baird, “This is your opportunity to show the world how Christians act by talking to us and by forgiving the students who were dismissed yesterday,” Wright recalled during a 2019 visit to Oklahoma Christian.

The 18 students were arrested and booked into the Oklahoma County Jail on trespassing complaints. Sixteen of the 18 arrested were black.

Upon their release from jail, the students were expelled and told to leave campus. Wright transferred to another school associated with Churches of Christ, Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

As the 50th anniversary of the incident at Oklahoma Christian approached, the university reached out to the 18 former students. Four had died, and six could not be found or did not respond to the university’s invitation. Eight responded, and seven of them, including Wright, attended a ceremony in April 2019 in which President John deSteiguer offered an apology for how they were treated.

“I apologize that this institution did not allow black students to enroll until 1961,” deSteiguer told a packed Baugh Auditorium as the seven former students sat on stage. “That is wrong.”

Then, stepping away from the podium and turning toward Wright and his former classmates, deSteiguer said, “And to you, as president of Oklahoma Christian University, I apologize for the way that you all were treated 50 years ago this morning.”

DeSteiguer gave each former student a framed certificate of commendation for their bravery. As Wright received his, he was overcome with emotion. “I’m ecstatic--delighted unbelievably--to be here,” he said.

Wright’s church affairs never took a back seat to his academic pursuits. He served as minister of the 63^rd and Vine Street Church of Christ in Philadelphia, Pa. for a number of years. When he and his family moved to Cincinnati, he became a leader of the Gray Road Church of Christ. He was an effective Bible School teacher, and was known as one of the wittiest and funniest gospel preachers in his brotherhood.

Wright and Peggy Barris were married in 1967. They were married for 46 years and from their union came two girls: Racquel and Ronda. During Wright’s long illness, his two daughters were his constant caregivers.

Wright’s parents, Harvey and Betty Wright; his sisters, Deborah and Carolyn; and his brother, Carl, all of Media, Pa., preceded him in death. Ron leaves to mourn his passing his two daughters, Racquel and Ronda, of Cincinnati; his wife, Caren, of Glen Mills, Pa.; his brother, Howard (Claudine), of Atlanta, Ga.; his sister, Denise, of Chester, Pa.; and his brother, Virgil, of Tampa, Fl.

When Wright was appointed Delgado Community College's chancellor in 2008, he succeeded Alex Johnson, who left after four years at Delgado to be president of the Community College of Allegheny County in the Pittsburgh area.

“I am excited about the wonderful opportunity I have been given to lead such an outstanding institution,” Wright, then 61, said at the time.

During Wright’s tenure at Delgado, Louisiana Technical College Region 1 became the Delgado Community College Technical Division. This change provided Delgado students with a seamless, full range of options from technical skills training to comprehensive liberal arts education. 

As chancellor, Wright oversaw much of Delgado’s recovery after Hurricane Katrina flooded the main campus in 2005. A major part of his job at Delgado was to continue to rebuild the college after the hurricane, especially the City Park Campus. He battled with the Federal Emergency Management Agency over its red tape to assess damaged property so the college could receive reimbursement.

“We lost about 40 percent of our classroom space, and today we are still down 40 percent of our classroom space,” Wright said in an interview with Community College Daily in 2009, four years after the hurricane hit.

Despite such challenges, Wright helped to restore the college and its enrollment. After an initial loss of 7,000 students because of the storm, the college saw enrollment increase from 10,000 in 2006 to 15,000 in 2009.

As the spring 2010 semester began, 30 percent of the building space at the City Park Campus remained unusable. Still, students came in droves, looking for affordable ways to retool their skills and find work in a city that, like the college, was still in recovery mode.

"Last fall we had to turn away around 1,500 people because we couldn't turn another closet into a classroom," Wright told a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter at the time. "That was the most distressing thing I had to do. I've never told anyone they couldn't come."

A major reason for the construction delays was the gulf between the college's estimate of the repair bill (about $39 million) and what the Federal Emergency Management Agency was willing to pay after an initial assessment (around $19 million). FEMA's offer was based on the cost of equipment at the time it was bought rather than the cost to replace it, Delgado officials maintained. The federal estimate also did not take into consideration post-Katrina building codes that require structures in low-lying areas to be elevated when they are rebuilt. After lengthy negotiations, the federal agency finally agreed to increase the reimbursement amount, setting the stage for a full recovery.

Enrollment at Delgado plummeted from 17,398 before Katrina to just 2,500 when the college reopened a semester later. By January 2010 it climbed to 16,715, just four percent below its pre-storm level. “We've been overwhelmed by people who have come to the conclusion that knowledge is the way out,” Wright said.

During Wright’s Delgado years, Katrina rebuilding did not prevent him from building new academic opportunities for Delgado students. Among his achievements was a two-plus-two articulation agreement with Southern University at New Orleans. It enabled Delgado graduates from associate degree programs in biology, mathematics or criminal justice to seamlessly transition into their junior years at SUNO’s bachelor of science programs in these three areas.

Delgado also enhanced and created partnerships with the University of New Orleans and other higher education institutions, as well as with private industry and public school districts,

Wright and his wife lived in Algiers and enjoyed the diverse cultural and culinary offerings of the New Orleans region. An ardent Philadelphia Eagles fan, Wright became a Saints believer and loved the New Orleans Hornets.

By 2011, with enrollment still climbing at Delgado to reach an all-time high of 20,452, Wright’s health declined to a point where he had to go on medical leave that spring. Later that year, he was selected to lead the development of Centers of Excellence throughout the Louisiana Community and Technical College System. Wright worked with faculty and administrators at the system’s 16 colleges to determine how to create these centers, which included centers for transportation in Baton Rouge and, in the Shreveport area, for cybertechnology.

Wright alluded to his health when he said, “I am no longer in the position to run the rigorous, day-to-day activities of [Delgado].” But he described himself as “eager to get back to work in this new capacity and continue my passion for helping develop skilled human capital for high-pay, high-technology jobs."

Wright published extensively in the areas of policy development, higher education administration, and psychology.  He presented more than 30 papers at various conferences and professional meetings before education, government and business audiences on topics including leadership, developing strategic partnerships, and managing cultural change in higher education. 

Wright’s areas of expertise included continuous quality improvement in higher education, curriculum design and development, economic and workforce development, fiscal management and fundraising, leadership development in community colleges, problem-solving, decision-making, team-building, strategic partnership development, strategic planning, and student recruitment and retention. 

While at Delgado, Wright served on the boards of the American Association of Community Colleges’ Commission on Economic and Workforce Development, the American Productivity and Quality Center, the Continuous Quality Improvement Network, the National Commission for Cooperative Education, and the National Council on Black American Affairs through the American Association of Community Colleges. 

Before his Delgado tenure, he served on the boards of the National Advisory Committee College Board Middle States Region, the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities, the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau, Greater Cincinnati United Way, the Northeastern Christian Junior College board, the State of Ohio Governor’s Workforce Quality Board, and the Ohio Governor’s Commission for Student Success.