Daytona Beach, FL - Bethune-Cookman University is welcoming it's seventh President today (July 1) with Dr. E. LaBrent Chrite beginning his tenure.
“I am tremendously honored to assume the presidency at Bethune-Cookman University,” Chrite said. “We face some serious challenges, but we have so much that’s outstanding in our community and traditions-and I have every confidence that together we will make exciting things happen.”
In a press release from B-C U, "Dr. Chrite has a global view to help build institutional capacity and lead Bethune-Cookman University to its next tier of excellence, thereby achieving the 21st century version of founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune's vision."
There is no place that I would rather be at this stage of life and my career than Bethune-Cookman University. I am not here despite our challenges. I am here because of them.
My intent is to work with this community to create the kind of narrative that I know is possible around which this community will coalesce as its best self to begin the upward-sloping trajectory that is necessary and that is owed to — not only our enduring legacy — but most importantly, to our students and our alumni community.
I understand the power of our resilience as a community and what happens when a cause as righteous as this one is on our side. I have been inspired by the faculty and been moved by our students.
It is precisely because of the profound and very serious challenges that the consequentiality of what we do together ought to be the ties that bind us as a community and that is what excites me. Our destiny is a shared one. I am where I am supposed to be. -Dr. E. LaBrent Chrite
