Written by: Alissa Flores
On Oct. 21, the Board of Trustees at Oakwood University announced the upcoming departure of the institution’s president Leslie Pollard via a statement released to the public.
Pollard, who has served as Oakwood president for 15 years, is scheduled to leave at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year for a position with the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (NAD). In his new role, he will serve as assistant to the NAD president for pastoral continuing education and mission.
“He will supervise and coordinate the Division’s engagement with continuing education for clergy and second-career ministerial professionals,” according to the statement signed by NAD President G. Alexander Bryant, chair of Oakwood’s Board of Trustees. “He will assume this new role on July 1, 2025.”
The announcement came as Pollard faced increasing pressure from a group of alumni, faculty, staff and students, known as Concerned Oakwoodites, to resign.The group organized in the fall of 2023 to address some concerns about Pollard’s leadership raised by supporters of the university.
A statement released by the Concerned Oakwoodites in an Oct. 22 article published by Spectrum magazine stated, “One year ago, we stood together, united by a shared vision: to save and restore our beloved Oakwood University. We believe the announced resignation of Dr. Leslie Pollard as Oakwood’s president marks a significant moment in this quest.”
David Person, co-founder of Concerned Oakwoodites, as well as an alumnus and former general manager of the Oakwood University radio station, said under the current leadership, Oakwood has faced issues such as decline in enrollment, low retention of employees and students and poor infrastructure maintenance.
“The main theme of it is lack of transparency.”
Once aware of problems, Concerned Oakwoodites analyzed public records and submitted its findings to the Oakwood Board of Trustees for review.
“We had a press conference in which we called for transparency and accountability from the Board of Trustees and the administration regarding finances and so forth,” Person stated in an interview with the Accent. “Fast forward to a few months after that, we began to call for the president to either resign or be terminated. We based that on our examination of the financials that have been filed, the public records, and the 990s that the school has to file with the federal government, indicating that there was some very serious debt that Oakwood was carrying, along with its continuing inability to be able to pay vendors.”
According to Brenda Johnson, a senior elementary education major at Oakwood, many students have felt a disconnect from the leadership at the university.
“The board is not necessarily constructed in a way that would ensure that decisions are made in the best interest of the school.”
“The main theme of it is lack of transparency with [Pollard],” she said. “The main issue last year was low enrollment. Instead of saying we’re trying to do better with low enrollment, [the leadership] said that all of our sister schools are dealing with lower enrollment.”
She mentioned Southern Adventist University as an example. “When that came out to not be true, and [other schools’] enrollment actually went up that year, it gave everybody a new head space,” Johnson explained.
The Accent reached out to multiple sources at Oakwood University via phone and email for comment, but the university did not respond in time for publication.
In the official statement released by the Board of Trustees, Bryant commended Pollard for his years of service and “significant achievements that Oakwood families will appreciate for years.”
It focused on his dedication to the school through tough times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, launching graduate programs, strengthening students’ relationships with Christ and building better community ties.
“Dr. Pollard has dedicated his life to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, first as a pastor and then in higher education; his experience will benefit countless others as he takes on this new challenge,” the statement reads, referring to his new NAD position.
“We would like for an interim president to be appointed.”
Despite Pollard’s plans to leave at the end of the academic year, Person stated that Concerned Oakwoodites is pushing for his resignation to take effect no later than the end of the current semester.
“We would like for an interim president to be appointed,” he said. “And, while they continue their search for a permanent president, we also want there to be a process as transparent as possible to search for a permanent president.”
According to Person, the group also appealed for a recomposition of Oakwood’s Board of Trustees, voicing concerns about its high percentage of denominational employees.
“The board is not necessarily constructed in a way that would ensure that decisions are made in the best interest of the school,” Person said, “as opposed to maybe denominational priorities or based on denominational politics.”
