Dr. Ben DeSpain has built his career on navigating crises and sees Life as his next great challenge
After talking with incoming Life University president Dr. Ben C. DeSpain, it is clear he has been preparing for this job since he first heard of the school’s accreditation troubles last
summer.“When I watched Life start to get the headlines, I told friends that I would like to be president here,” DeSpain said. “And when I saw the ad [for the position], I said, ‘This is the one for me.’ ”
But whether he knew it or not, DeSpain has been preparing to guide Life since the earliest points in his educational career, when he realized he had a penchant for leading schools and school systems through the toughest possible times.
Take, for example, his three-year stint as superintendent of the Jonesboro Public School District in Jonesboro, Ark.
It was DeSpain’s first superintendent’s position and it came under the worst of circumstances. Just prior to his taking the job, Jonesboro was hit with a devastating tornado that destroyed nine school buildings and severely damaged several others. More than 3,500 students were displaced as a result.
While many in the community panicked, DeSpain said his job was to keep a level head and remember that the students needed him most at a time like that.
DeSpain then worked to convince the community to find a silver lining on the enormous black cloud: the disaster was a chance to improve its educational facilities with the significant federal and state disaster assistance that would result.
In the meantime, makeshift school facilities were set up in churches, mobile homes and practically any other building left standing that could be converted to public use. Ultimately, the district thrived. It began to produce National Merit Scholars and contained the only three schools in the state to be named National Schools of Excellence.
Asked what was the key to surviving (perhaps even thriving) during the crisis, DeSpain responded that the key was remaining calm while nearly everyone around him did not.
“I am one of those people who doesn’t seem to get flapped all that easily,” DeSpain said. “The word ‘crisis’ doesn’t necessarily send a chill or a thrill up and down my spine.”
That quality served DeSpain well as he tackled a succession of schools and districts with a range of challenges.
In Tennessee, it was financial mismanagement. In South Carolina, it was racial tension. In Louisiana, it was overcoming the effects of a debilitating teacher strike. In Kentucky, it was correcting the results of a corrupt administration.
DeSpain
said none of those crises reminds him of Life University but collectively, the
experience has taught him some lessons on how to deal with Life’s current
woes.His more than eight years in higher education has taught him other skills, such as program building—he helped to expand offerings as a department chair and dean.
Mixed with his crisis experience, he may be perfectly suited to lead Life back to its former glory.
“Number one is when you have a crisis, you cannot give 100 percent of your time to that crisis,” he said. “Doing that can only lead to more crises as you neglect your normal operations.”
To that end, DeSpain is splitting time between the fight to regain accreditation for Life’s chiropractic program and developing plans to grow Life’s undergraduate offerings.
Not that he’s downplaying the importance of chiropractic to the school’s past or future.
First, the new administration will not engage in finger pointing or assigning blame for Life’s current situation. That is simply unproductive, DeSpain said. Nor does it seek to diminish the huge importance chiropractic has in the creation and phenomenal growth of Life University, he said.
Simply put, Life’s future depends on more balance.
“We should never again be in the position where problems with one program threatens the life of the institution,” DeSpain said.
That means expanding the undergraduate programs and recruiting more students to get business or biology degrees from Life, he said.
The administration is also assembling a think tank of sorts, to gather and identify ideas on where Life should be headed. The group will meet regularly to exchange ideas and “see beyond the obvious,” when considering how to grow the university.
Secondly, regarding the ongoing accreditation battle with the Council on Chiropractic Education, the university has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the agency denied due process during the reaffirmation process.
“We expect a judge to rule on our request for injunctive relief within days. A favorable decision would eliminate the need for a full-scale lawsuit. However, if we are not successful in seeking injunctive relief, we will seek an expedited trial that would lead to a decision within months,” commented DeSpain.
“All of the steps taken by the interim administration over the summer and fall were necessary measures that we believe should have prepared us for a speedy, if not immediate, return to accreditation,” he added. “We expected our request to be placed on the agenda to be honored and it was not. At this point, we are left with no other options except those provided through the legal system.”
“The bottom line is we will do whatever it takes to shorten the amount of time it takes to regain accreditation,” DeSpain added.
And once that accreditation is regained, it is clear that DeSpain intends to make sure that Life never loses accreditation again.
To DeSpain, that means a continual improvement in the curriculum, which began with changes made this summer, and a higher level of involvement with the accrediting bodies for the institution.
“Being an outsider in the CCE process really hurt us during the process that denied our accreditation. As the largest chiropractic school in the world, we should have been a heavyweight,” he said. “But it’s not a quick fix.”
Life’s relationship with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which accredits the entire institution, is in better shape than its relationship with the CCE.
SACS has placed the school on a yearlong probation, a move that has raised some concerns, but DeSpain considered it a victory given the options available to SACS.
“They could have pulled institutional accreditation when we lost our chiropractic accreditation but they have been reasonable throughout this process,” DeSpain said. “It’s a positive any way you cut it.”
A confident DeSpain said he hopes to build on those positives as he leads Life through this crisis and on to its next phase of growth.
“Without a doubt, this challenge is the greatest of my career but I know that what I do does in fact work,” he said.
And what he does is reflected in his leadership philosophy.
“It is essential that a leader recognize the importance of serving the needs of his or her organization,” he said. “I will take that approach here at Life, ensuring that the students’ needs achieve top priority. By doing that, the University cannot help but succeed.”