Howard University’s newly appointed president doesn’t come to the job with a background that one might expect. 

Dr. Ben Vinson III isn’t deeply rooted in the HBCU community but is committed to seeing “the Mecca” flourish and to nurturing Black excellence.

Growing up in Europe fueled his curiosity about the Black experience across the globe, planting the roots of his lifelong passion to become a historian of the African diaspora. 

Howard’s board of trustees voted unanimously in May to appoint 52-year-old Vinson. On Nov. 4, the university inaugurated him as its 18th president, starting a new chapter in Howard’s storied history.

Speaking from the podium, Vinson rhetorically asked what is so special about this place that has produced world-class scholars and leaders.

“You see, there is magic at work at Howard. It has been since our inception more than a century and a half ago,” he answered. 

Vinson spoke with BET.com about the road ahead.

The Howard Way

The new president said an approach he calls “the Howard Way” will inform how the university does things.

“The Howard Way is a special way of teaching and learning that emphasizes uplift and purpose and making sure that we find a way to deliver,” he explained with a sense of vision and confidence in what lies ahead.

To achieve its full potential, he said Howard must build up its capacity and function at maximum strength to be impactful. That means ensuring the university can deliver robust research that only Howard can. 

That approach is already underway, as the university is poised to emerge as a renowned research center. 

In January, the U.S. Air Force selected Howard as the first HBCU to lead a University Affiliated Research Center, focusing on tactical autonomy technology for military systems. HU will receive $12 million yearly for five years to fund research, faculty and students.

Housing and financial troubles now in the past

Amid all the great news about the university, Howard has also found itself in the national spotlight in unflattering ways. 

Students have protested living conditions – from mold to rodents and leaky roofs – since at least the late 1980s, according to an NBC News report. The situation reached a boiling point, capturing national attention in 2018 when students occupied the administration building for multiple days.

But Vinson said that’s all in the rearview mirror because of a building frenzy and capital improvement projects on campus.

“We're doing more apartment-style living, affordable housing that our students, faculty, staff, and community members can access. We're in the middle of all that and will be for several more years. So that's something that Howard is turning the page on,” he said.

Bloomberg reported a $300 million tax-exempt bond funding deal with Preston Hollow Community Capital that would facilitate housing improvements for the Towers, Drew, Cook, Quad, and Axis dormitories across the campus.

Meanwhile, Howard has announced $785 million in investment to campus construction projects to build three new state-of-the-art multidisciplinary academic halls and to renovate several existing structures, including the historic Myrtilla Miner Building. 

Howard has also turned a page on its financial troubles, according to Vinson. 

In June 2015, Moody’s Investors Services lowered the university’s credit rating for the third time in three years. 

“We received upgrades in Moody's, and we are coming off some of the greatest years of external investment. Our books are balanced,” Vinson said. “We’ve had some very good years, quite frankly, it is one reason that I was attracted to Howard – because Howard's trajectory is superb.” 

Big challenges ahead

The new president identified two areas that require ongoing vigilance. One of them is ensuring that research investment dollars keep rolling in. 

“You need to have the investments that help you soar, the donations that allow you to build your faculty,” he explained. “These are things that are very important for us. And it's an ongoing situation.” 

The other area is campus safety, especially in the wake of recent homecoming shootings, including Morgan State University and Bowie State University. Vinson credited partnerships with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the city for a homecoming without violent disturbances. 

While there were no serious violent incidents at Howard during homecoming, students are vulnerable to security breaches on campus. 

In August, at least one student was stabbed and others injured in an attack outside two residence halls at Howard by a group that a victim described as “a bunch of D.C. locals,” NBC News Washington reported. At least one juvenile suspect was arrested with a handgun.

Vinson said the university addresses campus security through new technology, including distributing personal safety devices that allow students to page for help and reminding them to use a buddy system. 

“The approach is what I call a three-headed Hydra, if you will, of trying to make sure that you deliver a safe campus focusing on your students' sense of safety, cooperation with your city and then elevating your resources within your institution,” he said.

The Journey to Howard

Vinson comes to Howard from Case Western Reserve University, a private research college in Cleveland, where he served as provost and executive vice president responsible for academic and university research.

His academic career began on the faculties of Barnard College and Penn State University. He went on to teach history at Johns Hopkins University, where he founded its Center for Africana Studies and served as vice dean, a role he also held at George Washington University.

Vinson said he was happy as a professor and never thought he would grow into academic administration. 

His first leadership position was directorship of Johns Hopkins’ African Studies program. While there, he also worked on helping the Afro-American Newspaper, the oldest continuously operating Black-owned newspaper in the nation, digitize its archives and recover its history. 

“I helped work with the greater Baltimore community and Hopkins in a critical moment, and I helped other professors with their own work and students,” he recalled. “This type of work is so meaningful in the ways that you can make other people's careers better and more fluid. That's what drew me to the work. And I was fortunate enough to be successful at it.”

Throughout his career, Vinson was committed to promoting diversity at the predominantly White universities where he worked. He created a consortium at George Washington that helped HBCU students attend the school at a discount. He was involved in a similar collaboration at Case Western that included collaborative research partnerships with HBCUs. 

Italian lessons in life

Vinson considers himself “an internationalist” because of his experience growing up in a military family. Born in South Dakota, Vinson was about age 2 when the Air Force stationed his father in Italy and relocated the family to a small town named Sovizzo, outside of Vicenza, about 325 miles north of Rome.  

Italian neighbors helped raise Vinson when his parents went to the base, teaching him to speak the language. The Vinsons were the only Americans in the town and the only Black people for miles.

“All of that just changes your mindset. It made me curious about Black experiences in other countries,” Vinson said.

The family returned to the United States when Vinson was about 11. It was an eye-opening experience visiting family in Alabama at the end of the civil rights era and asking his aunts why he couldn’t play with certain kids after returning from what was a far more racially tolerant Europe at that time. 

As he settles into his new position, Vinson finds it hard to imagine that he will have much free time. But he enjoys catching up on his reading and writing projects when he has downtime. Vinson also enjoys spending time with his wife, Dr. Yolanda Fortenberry, a biochemist, and their three children, Allyson, Ben and Brandon. And whenever he can, Vinson likes to attend sporting events, especially professional basketball and football. Lately, he has been a regular at Howard Bison games.

Vinson's vision includes promoting research while seizing opportunities in artificial intelligence, addressing health disparities and combating climate change. He wants to interweave humanities and social sciences with Howard’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) training to address the complex challenges. 

As an historian, Vinson said he recognizes that there is something powerful about Howard’s legacy.

“At Howard, all of that legacy comes into play in how we educate, how we do research, the research questions that we ask. Howard is in an ongoing conversation with our past. So we're part of a journey. And that's special,” he said.