Background

Served as vice president of student services and enrollment management at Cape Fear Community College since 2015. In addition, he has served as executive vice president for learning and student success at Craven Community College (2012-2015), vice president for student services at Craven Community College (2009–2012), dean of student services at Tidewater Community College at the Virginia Beach Campus (2007–2009), dean of counseling at Chabot College in Hayward, California (2006–2007), and dean of Learning support services at Bakersfield College in Bakersfield, California (2004–2005).
Dr. Minus earned his bachelor’s degree in marketing from Hampton University, his master’s degree in business education/higher education from New York University and his Ed.D in Educational Leadership from the University of Phoenix.

The interview

Why did you want to apply to be president of HCC?

I wanted to apply for this position for a number of reasons. One, it was a natural progression for me professionally. I always wanted to, if I was going to lead an institution, I wanted to lead a smaller one. When a colleague made me aware of the vacancy and I began to just do some research on my own about the college, about the service area, I just felt an immediate connection with wanting to be an inspiration and also a conduit for connecting people in this service area to education and training.
I want to make a difference and I saw this opportunity to be one where I felt my skillset and background and passion matched. It seemed like a perfect match for me.

What do you feel you can bring to the table for the college?

I think at this juncture I think I am a very good fit for this institution, primarily because the duties of a college president is sort of in a state of flux in terms of the sector.
The presidency is lot different than it was 20 years ago. Presidents that take the helm now or have even taken the helm over the past 10 years or so they’ve seen tremendous shifts in our mission.
Although our core elements are there, the access and flexibility and offering opportunities to folks that are disadvantaged, we shifted into another paradigm now where it’s just not about the students we get to enter. It’s about are they being successful when they get here and ending up with a market value credential that they can use and going onto further their education in ways that will make them marketable down the road.
Much more now than ever that’s being tracked and even monies are being awarded and allocated from legislators in terms of how we’re doing with that.
What I bring to the table is that focus on the 21st Century community college mission.
I’ve worked in public and private, two year and four year and rural and urban colleges, but there’s a special niche in there for rural colleges where you sometimes have to put a lot of things together to create the networks for success as opposed to urban areas.
So what I bring to the table specifically is this 21st Century sort of vision that balances the access, the flexibility with a focus on student success and that’s accomplished in a variety of ways.
Now more than ever our community colleges are called to be all things to all people. While that’s a very noble goal, we’re not always able to meet those demands for a variety of reasons, whether it’s the shrinking state funding, economic changes and shifts so what I bring to the table is an ability to help create an ecosystem for the college focused in science.
I think that’s a good analogy because I have the skills and the background and ability based upon what I’ve done and what I’ve worked with folks on in terms of initiatives to sort of position the college to be partners, whether it’s K-12, whether it’s business and industry, universities and colleges, whether it’s looking at fundraising totally differently and thinking about more development, things that we have to be entrepreneurial now, which I bring to the table as well, an ability to think about not counting our resources that you may not get and being able to be entrepreneurial to create those avenues to create success for the college.
It’s an ability to nurture and foster relationships because I think at the center of all that I’ve said, it’s the ability to bring folks to the table and create relationships and sustain them.
It’s not enough to start a partnership, you’ve got to be willing for the long haul to continue that over time.

What would you like to see done at the community college should you get the job?

I think it’s important to first of all state for me, if I’m the one selected to come into this role, I would really want to take the time to really put my listening ears on and I wouldn’t give myself a certain timeframe for that.
Sometimes folks say 90 days, sometimes folks say longer. It depends on the culture, it depends on the institution and where it is.
I’d spend a lot of time just listening internally, going externally and listening about the needs and about the challenges and about the things that have driven the college to this point, where opportunities that folks see are.
Even beyond that you’ve got to spend some time talking about what are folk’s dreams, what do they want to see the college be. Let’s talk aspirational, if we had all the resources we had at our disposal in the world, what would we want to become? You’ve got to spend the time talking about those things because those are the things that begin to form how you move for planning on a strategic level. That’s the first thing I’d have to put out there first.
I would never come in and just say I want to do X, Y. and Z, because each institution has its own lay of the land, has its own culture and even its own direction.
Beyond that, the college has a current strategic plan that’s coming to an end. I think it would be important to spend some time looking at the strategic plan that’s outgoing and pull all the various stakeholders together to do that inside the college and outside to talk about what worked well, what did we accomplish, what are some things from this that we can see ourselves moving towards continuing to do in the future.
You’ve got to have this as part of this transition.
The third tier is as a new president what would I like to do.
You talk about how you would position the college for the 21st Century success. I think first of all it involves relationships with the people because you’ve got to make sure that you’re connected to the folks that are going to help you to do the work. The president is just a part of that concept. You’ve got to have everyone moving in the same direction.
Looking at what we know the current trends are in not just higher education but specific to the community college sector and specifically North Carolina. We know the more we can do to help our communities be economically viable and connect the citizens to the training that makes them better, makes them more employable, helps them achieve different status in their lives whether it’s to get out of poverty, those things are still going to be in the forefront.
The president will need to be involved, whether it’s redefining, re-establishing or even just strengthening relationships with business and industry, with K-12 and other universities in the region and even looking at ways, knowing our financial base is not a stagnant one, continue to make sure we look at alternative resources or revenues, whether it’s going to be through grants to help sustain us or help us build programs or whether it’s helping us looking at other kinds of partnerships.
There is a role the college can play in exposing folks to higher education. There’s a whole myriad of skills, of training and development, of opportunities that sometimes that exposure is the thing that sets the lightbulb off.

Who influenced your decision to get into education?

I’d say my parents were the direct influences. It’s funny to a degree, both of them were K-12 administrators in the Washington, D.C., area.
My father retired as an assistant superintendent, my mother retired as an assistant principal.
For the longest time I ran from education. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Business was my thing, I wanted to be my own boss and I have an interest in music and songwriting. One of my goals as a young man was to be the next Quincy Jones. It wasn’t just the music aspect of what he did, it was how he approached the business side of the enterprise so for me that’s what drew me.
Then my first job out of graduate school was an academic counselor at the University of Phoenix. I was bitten by higher education at that point in my life.
Ever since then I realized my passion for helping others sort of attain their goals and get plugged into education. I enjoyed it.
I still do the music on the side because you have to feed your soul and find a way to have balance in your life, so I still write and my brother and I have a small independent record label that we run.
We satisfy our desires from an entrepreneurial standpoint that way, but the passion for education, my parents just instilled it and when I got exposed working in that environment I was sold ever since.

Any favorite book you’ve read or any favorite person you’ve drawn inspiration from the most?

(Talks about his father)
The time that he went through the process of teaching and as a counselor and assistant principal and finally a principal it was very tumultuous in D.C. and as a young child I watched him from afar.
I didn’t know all the nuances and understand all of the tidbits about was happening.
What I did know by the time he got promoted to principal, racial tensions were high in D.C. and he was given a school in D.C. that was probably the worst-performing junior high in D.C.
People talk about the movie Lean on Me a lot. When my dad actually sat me down and talked to me, I said this movie parallels what you went through and he told me, Daryl, that pales in comparison to the realities of what it was like to be in a situation like that.
Not only did he get in the situation and make some really needed changes, but he turned the school around to the point it was one of the model schools, not just in D.C., but he got national recognition for the job he had done.
That was one example of my dad that sort of parlays into my life’s philosophies just in terms of being able to persevere and feeling strongly to what you’re committed to and caring about people, caring about kids, valuing relationships, not giving in from the pressures from school boards and other kinds of places. He navigated all that.
My dad, in watching his career in general and the kind of person that he was, that was a big part of my inspiration. I told him much later, once I got into education, but I can see a lot of what I have done and what I do and I see a lot of what he did.

How will the possible change in the state governor’s race change education on the community college level?

It’s very much unsettled at this point. From a point of the community college’s position, if it goes either way there are definite pros and cons I think for the community college sector in North Carolina.
What my hope is, looking at the race, it’s too close to call and folks really don’t know.
I would say there’s certain values and there’s certain focuses on education that we need to keep in the forefront for us to be able to be as impactful as we’ve been. Those are the things in terms of looking at, I hate to say it, but there’s an impact, looking at salaries, looking at providing the funds for performance-based allocations so we can make sure we are pouring money back into successful practices, looking at how we will be able to sustain with money not always being there or drying up in some cases.
We’ve got to have the most cutting edge technology. We are at the forefront of business and industry, making sure that students and those that work with us are able to work on industry standard equipment, industry standard resources.
We have to have the ability to be able to bring those things into our operations and those are pricey undertakings.
We are one of the main reasons why North Carolina’s economic engine turned. It’s not the only reason but we’re probably a big reason for that. Those are things that I’m hoping, however the race swings that we stay sort of in the forefront of thinking.