Interview with President Thomas Hudson, President of Jackson State University

Jackson State University President Thomas Hudson, J.D., joined Bridget Burns and Doug Lederman in this week's episode of the Innovating Together Podcast. There have been 12 presidents in JSU’s 144-year history, and President Hudson is only the second alumnus president, which he believes is an advantage. President Hudson said, “It shortens the learning curve when it comes to alumni relations.” He has been affiliated with JSU all of his life before taking on several roles in the administration. He was appointed interim president at JSU when the pandemic was just on the horizon. President Hudson said, “Maintain the focus on your core mission, your core constituency, handle the business of the University and keep your focus there. As long as you are doing that, I don’t think you can go wrong. You always have to have the future of the University in mind, even when you are in a role that may very well be temporary.”

Evolution of decision-making

“One of the things that I talk to my colleagues and members of my administration often is this concept of getting to the solution quicker, not staying so much in assessment mode. When you’re in a leadership position you are constantly evaluating, you’re constantly in some level of assessment, but you cannot stay in that mode. You have to get to solutions. You have to make decisions. So, if anything, the response time and response rate in terms of how soon you get to the solution when you are confronted with problems. You just don’t really have a lot of time to linger. You have to be willing to make mistakes… We have to understand if it doesn’t work, you have the flexibility to pull back and rethink… That’s probably the biggest change I have seen in terms of my leadership.”

Keeping your team resilient

“During the pandemic, you learn different ways to communicate. We all learned to use Zoom effectively and all of these virtual spaces… I meet monthly with my faculty senate, my staff senate. I meet bi-weekly with my administrative team individually. And once a week of course we meet as a body. When I first started, I had four specific priorities of the presidency. And really just pushing those things and as we go forward we released our strategic plan this past September… That requires constant communication to make sure we are all on the same page.”

Communicating with Optimism and Confidence

President Hudson explained it is important to communicate with optimism and confidence. Being the senior person in the room at all times, he has learned there is power in your words, what you say matters, and people act on it. You have to be careful what you say. When asked by Bridget how he decompresses, he shared that if there are problems he wants to process orally, he calls a previous president who understands the job, rather than venting to his staff.

President Hudson's favorite book on leadership is called The President's Club, written by Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs. It discusses the transition of power with US Presidents going back to the Hoover administration. “We all build on the great work that was done before us. We are just here for a time. It’s our job to make sure we leave it better than we found it and hand it off to the next leader.”

The best advice that President Hudson has received  was by Dr. Page, “Finding yourself in your role and responsibilities you’ve been given and staying true to yourself and staying true to the mission of the University.”  Another piece of advice was from Dr. Nelson, “Never forgetting the business of higher education. The nuts and bolts of what we do here, how we deliver our product, how we market our product, and how we pay for our product. Your first responsibility is to make sure the University has the resources it needs to act in accordance with its mission.”