Charlie Nelms, Chancellor, North Carolina Central University

As the chief executive of North Carolina Central University since 2007, Dr. Charlie Nelms has emphasized student success and the measures to achieve it. He repurposed the University College to provide academic support and skills training for underprepared freshmen and sophomores. Nelms realigned the budget to better support student achievement, emphasized campus-wide accountability and responsibility, and strengthened internal controls and fiscal and administrative infrastructure.

Since his arrival, U.S. News and World Report ranked NCCU as the best public historically black college or university in the country for two years in a row and the Southern Regional Education Board recognized NCCU as one of only 15 bachelor's- or master's-level universities across the country that succeeds in graduating more than 45 percent of a student body that is low-wealth and less well-prepared as measured by the results of the SAT.

Nelms has prior experience in the role of chief executive. In 1987, he began a seven-year tenure as chancellor of Indiana University East, and in 1994 he was named chancellor of the University of Michigan at Flint (UMF). There, he resolved a significant campus budget deficit, reversed a four-year enrollment decline and secured more than $75 million in private gifts to UMF. Nelms also served as vice president for Institutional Development and Student Affairs for the Indiana University system.

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