Clinton Bristow Jr. was one of those men who looked you in the eye when he was talking to you, letting you know that you mattered.

Before answering questions, he usually paused to consider his response, not because he wanted to think of a good way to spin it, but because he wanted what he said to be important.

The people who knew him said Bristow brought passion to what he did, led his life with a keen sense of purpose and, above all, cared deeply about the students at Alcorn State University.

"He was a great role model for African-American men," said Alcorn's student government president Larry Duncan, 22, a senior. "He taught us to reach for the top so we can succeed."

He said Bristow's mantra was "ASU equals CEO" and referred to the university as the "Academic Resort."

Bristow, 57, an avid runner, died Saturday night while jogging on campus. He had been president of the 3,500-student university since 1995.

He was credited with improving the physical campus at Alcorn, upping the graduation rate and heavily recruiting nonblack students, a goal set forth by a complicated lawsuit settled a few years ago.

Recently retired Alcorn administrator Malvin Williams was named Sunday night as the university's interim president. He will serve until a permanent replacement is found.

But the focus Sunday was on Bristow.

"You know you have a really significant man in front of you," remembered James Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup Organization, a global public opinion polling firm. "He had one of the most charismatic personalities I have known in 10 years."

Clifton, whose organization was working with Bristow to create a leadership training program at Alcorn, described the university president as "loaded with charisma."

Lester Newman, president of Mississippi Valley State University, another historically black university, said he met Bristow more than 15 years ago when both were deans at other colleges.

He and others praised Bristow as a man who constantly worked to make his school a better one so its students could succeed.

"One of his strong suits at Alcorn was that he was deeply committed to move people into graduate school," Newman said. "Alcorn has started to develop a reputation for moving people to the next level."

Alpha Morris, the treasurer-elect of Alcorn's alumni association, said student achievement was Bristow's first priority, including after they'd left Alcorn.

He stressed the importance of students either entering the job market or going on to graduate and professional school, said Morris, also a sociology professor and chair of the social sciences department.

She said the alumni met with Bristow on Saturday and discussed some concerns they had about the university with him.

"He took notes," she said. "Those notes were going to become realities."

Perry Taylor, an 18-year-old sophomore, remembered how Bristow stayed up three days straight after Hurricane Katrina, making sure there was enough gas on campus so students could drive home. He made sure those who couldn't leave campus were OK, too.

Taylor said he and a couple of friends living in the dorm told Bristow they didn't feel comfortable staying there. Bristow allowed the men to stay in rooms in the campus police dorm for a few nights.

"That's why I respect the man," Taylor said.

Ronald Mason Jr., president of Jackson State University, said Bristow was in Jackson one day not long after Katrina.

Mason, whose parents were living with him at the time, said Bristow came by his house just to chat with Mason's parents.

"In fact, my mother was making him a pot of okra gumbo (when he died)," Mason said. " I was going to take it to him this week."

William B. DeLauder, former president of Delaware State University, said Bristow was developing a national reputation, especially at historically black colleges.

"He has a passion for students and a passion for being able to put in place programs that give students an opportunity to do well," he said.

Wiley Jones, director of special projects at Alcorn and a university employee for 41 years, remembered Bristow when he first came to the university.

"I couldn't have chosen anyone any better than him," Jones said. "He changed the landscape of the campus, beautified the campus. He had old structures, those that were no longer useful or eyesores, demolished and made into plazas."

Willie Meaux, president of the Meaux Washington Group, a firm that lobbies for black land grant institutions in Washington, D.C., said Bristow grew to love his adopted home, despite being from Chicago. "He loved Mississippi," he said. "I feel pain for Mississippi because this man loved your state."

Dwayne Ashley, CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Fund, said Bristow always looked on the bright side of things.

"He was by far one of the most positive human beings you could ever come across," he said. "No matter what you talked about, Dr. Bristow talked about the positive side about it."

Bristow had a daughter, Maya, attending graduate school out of state, said Lezli Baskerville, who described herself as "Alcorn's first lady," though she would neither confirm nor deny rumors that the two had recently been married.

Baskerville is president of the National Association of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

"He died in a place that he loved, among people he loved," Baskerville said. "He died at the top of his game."

She said he coined the phrase "communiversity," and strengthened the bond between the school and the surrounding community.

She said he described his time at Alcorn as "among the richest experiences of his career."

A memorial service is tentatively scheduled for Friday.

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College Board Names ASU Interim President
Alcorn Carries on After Death

The Clarion Ledger, August 21, 2006
By Kelli Esters and Richard Lake

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060821/NEWS01/608210358

LORMAN — The man named late Sunday to take charge of Alcorn State University in the wake of its president's unexpected death said he'll continue the work of Clinton Bristow Jr.

"I see my role as coming in here and making sure his projects are carried out," said Malvin Williams, a longtime administrator at Alcorn who retired last year.

Williams, 64, was named interim president of Alcorn at an emergency state College Board meeting Sunday night. He is expected to be on the job for several months while the board looks for Bristow's permanent replacement.

Bristow, 57, died while jogging on campus Saturday night. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete. A memorial service is tentatively set for Friday.

Bristow had been president of the southwest Mississippi school of 3,500 students since 1995.

Flags were at half-staff on campus Sunday while students milled around preparing for the first day of school, which is today.

Williams, who still lives just off campus, said he expects his appointment to last six to eight months.

Higher Education Commissioner Thomas Meredith did not say when the search for a permanent president would begin. He said he considered several people for the interim job before settling on Williams. The board backed Meredith's recommendation unanimously.

"I thought we needed to get someone on board as soon as possible," said Meredith, who visited the campus on Sunday.

Sophia Shafal, a clerk at the busy Alcorn Service Station commonly called "Jack's," said she could tell Bristow's death was affecting people, though there weren't a lot of customers talking about it.

"You can tell people are sad and moody. Who knows what tomorrow will bring," she said of the first day of school.

Shafal was outside of the convenience store about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when a male and a female student came running up to her from the track behind the store.

"They said we needed to get campus police, because someone had collapsed on the track," Shafal said.

She told the man to go inside the store and have someone call police and she ran down to the track with the woman. It took them a couple of minutes to find the body in the dark, she said.

"He was lying face down on the track and, at that point, I didn't know who it was until we turned him over," Shafal said. She said she shook Bristow and called out his name trying to get a response. When he didn't respond, she checked his pulse and felt nothing. She then started to perform CPR until an ambulance came.

She said it took until Sunday for his death to sink in.

"He made sure his university was running right," Shafal said.

Lezli Baskerville, who described herself as the first lady of Alcorn, said she talked to Bristow about an hour before she was told he died.

"He was in good cheer," said Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, an advocacy group for the nation's 120 historically black colleges and universities. They talked about Bristow's 25-year-old daughter, who is starting an industrial psychology doctorate program on the West Coast, Baskerville said.

"Maya had gotten settled in and was well on to reaching her dreams. She's a bright young lady who was the apple of his eye."

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Local leaders Remember Bristow as ‘Visionary’

By Joan Gandy
The Natchez democrat, August 21, 2006 http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/articles/2006/08/21/news/news183.txt  

NATCHEZ — Political and business leaders who knew Clinton Bristow and worked with him during the past 11 years described the Alcorn State University president’s death as a loss not just for Alcorn but also for Southwest Mississippi.

Butch Brown, executive director of the state Department of Transportation, was Natchez mayor in 1995, when Bristow was named Alcorn president. On Sunday, Brown recalled some of the projects conceived and carried out between the university and the city, especially the business school program.

Brown remembers Bristow as a man always ready to accept new ideas. “He bought into Natchez. He believed in his ‘communiversity’ concept.”

Bristow’s concept was to use the resources of Alcorn to help develop the area surrounding the university through economic, cultural and educational partnerships with communities such as Natchez.

Fred Callon, president of Callon Petroleum, said Bristow was a “true visionary. He saw how business and education could work together. He knew the future of Alcorn and Southwest Mississippi were tied together.”

Callon described Bristow as “an absolutely amazing individual with a tremendous love for Alcorn. He was a dynamic, articulate man and he will be sorely missed.” 

Brown said that under Bristow’s leadership, Alcorn began to recruit more white students, broadening its image from that of the traditionally black university.

“He knew he could grow the communiversity concept by having a more even racial mix, and he achieved that, even going around the world to recruit students,” Brown said.

“I think that has been one of his best achievements. That was a way for Alcorn to find its right role in Southwest Mississippi, and he invested in that in dollars, time and philosophy.”

Brown spoke to Bristow by phone only a few days ago. “We (MDOT) were working on a lighting project at the entrance to the campus at Lorman, and it had taken a couple of years for us to get to it,” Brown said. “But we were finally ready, and I called him to let him know.”

Natchez attorney Brent Bourland, who has been a member of the board of directors for the Natchez-based Alcorn School of Nursing, said Bristow’s vision made a lasting impact on Natchez.

Bourland and Fred Callon approached Bristow with a proposal a couple of years ago, and Bristow jumped on the idea, Bourland said.

The result of that meeting was the establishment of the Alcorn technology center at the corner of Franklin and Walls streets, a specialized incubator set up to assist start-up businesses through technology sharing.

Today, the center “is ready to start growing. And the strength of the technology center is that it was a teamwork concept,” Bourland said.

“Dr. Napoleon Moses has been a part of that team and is as committed as Dr. Bristow was. There should be no interruption,” Bourland said.

“Dr. Bristow was a real leader,” Bourland said. “He could just as well have led IBM as Alcorn.”

A mark of his leadership will be the legacy of leaders he left to carry on, including Moses, vice president of academic affairs, Bourland said.

Steve Wells, associate dean for the graduate business programs in Natchez, agreed, saying Bristow’s leadership will continue to be evident in the years ahead.

“He has developed good leadership and a good staff, and the university will continue to move forward,” Wells said.

When Wells came to Alcorn, the graduate business program at Natchez was at the top of Bristow’s list. “It was one of his first major projects” soon after he became president, said Wells, who arrived only a few months after Bristow.

“We started plans for the project in 1996 and had first classes in 1997,” Wells said. The new building formally opened in March.

“He really pushed the Natchez programs,” Wells said. “He had a vision for the role of the university to be broadened to he entire region and even to the world beyond.”

Wells said Bristow’s impact is visible in new buildings on the main campus in Lorman but that the president saw Alcorn “spreading its wings and broadening its outreach, especially in Natchez.”

Bristow’s approach helped the city and county in many ways, County Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said Sunday.

Grennell, who also teaches microbiology at Alcorn, said Bristow helped Natchez by introducing the MBA program.

“That has been a major asset to the community, from an economic standpoint, as a resource for businesses and in brining students to come here to go to school,” Grennell said.

Grennell said he and Bristow were close from the time Bristow arrived at the University.

“It is just hard to believe,” Grennell said. “He’s truly going to be missed.”

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Alcorn President Dies During Jog on Track

By Danny Barrett Jr.,
The Vicksburg Post, August 21, 2006
 http://www.vicksburgpost.com/articles/2006/08/21/news/news01.txt

LORMAN - Dr. Clinton Bristow, who would have started his 12th year as president of Alcorn State University Thursday, died Saturday during an evening jog around the university track. He was 57.

A student happened upon Bristow's body at Henderson Field, alerted campus security and employees at campus service station. Efforts to revive him failed.

“I was at work at the service station when a student came up and told me it looked like a man was on the field,” said Mitchell Williams, an employee of the water treatment plant and a part-time worker at the service station, who said the discovery was made at about 10:30 p.m.

It appeared as though Bristow fell forward, Williams said. An autopsy was to be performed today at Mississippi Mortuary Services in Pearl, Claiborne County Coroner J.W. Mallet said.

Funeral arrangements were to be announced. A daughter, Maya, who is a graduate student, was listed as a survivor.

Today is the first day of the fall semester and the 3,500 students were expected to start classes at 8 a.m. despite the Bristow's death, Director of University Relations Chris Cason said.

“He wouldn't have wanted us to curtail classes despite our deep mourning,” Cason said.

In an emergency meeting of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning Sunday, members selected Dr. Malvin Williams, Alcorn's vice president for academics, from July 1976 until June 2005, to serve as interim president.

“Williams served nearly his entire working career at Alcorn State University,” Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Thomas C. Meredith said. “He is committed to the vision of the institution and will effectively guide the University until a permanent president is announced.”

Meredith, who made his first visit to the Claiborne County campus earlier this month, said then and repeated Sunday his admiration for Bristow.

“His love for Alcorn and its students was remarkable,” he said.

Bristow came to Alcorn after a career in law and education in Illinois. He earned three degrees from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., including a doctorate in education and public administration.

After practicing law and real estate for five years, he served as dean of the College of Business at Chicago State University for 15 years before taking the reins at Alcorn State.

He was the university's 16th president, succeeding Dr. Walter Washington, their longest-serving president, who had served since 1969.

His tenure was marked by a building boom on campus, with several projects completed and several under way. He also created a master's of business administration degree program in Natchez and expanded computer, nursing and engineering courses offered in Vicksburg, the two cities nearest the isolated campus.

He was known for promoting Alcorn as an “academic resort” and was candid about its location - far from malls, movies and fast-food restaurants. He said it took special students to enroll at Alcorn and that it made them closer to each other.

In addition to a new $12 million dining hall, other pending projects include a new biotechnology and research center to serve the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, a 3-mile bicycle path that winds through campus and eventually connects with the Natchez Trace, renovations to the original president's home into office space and for a multicultural education center are also planned.

Alcorn was the first and only of Mississippi's historically black universities to achieve a non-black enrollment of at least 10 percent for three consecutive years, a stipulation in settling litigation, the Ayers case, filed in 1975 and alleging funding disparities among historically white and historically black state colleges. As a result, Alcorn was the first to reap money - $25 million - from the total Ayers settlement pool of $517 million.

In recent years, the university was lauded for hosting many Russian students. Last month, Bristow reached an agreement with the executive council members of Andhra University in India to begin student exchanges and research activities with students there.

Bristow was especially proud of the graduation rate, one of the best in the nation, for student athletes. Though small, the school has had national recognition in sports. NFL quarterback Steve McNair was a Heisman finalist there and the basketball team is frequently in the NCAA tournament.

Under Bristow, the school has also been on the national stage when former President George Bush delivered a commencement address and when the school's choir performed at the second inauguration of the current President Bush.

Bristow listed his own goals (1) increasing the percentage of minority students attending graduate and professional school; and, (2) increasing the public's awareness and appreciation of the value and contributions to society by land-grant universities through their research, extension programs and overall excellence.

He was a member of the board of directors of National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the Capital Financing Board for HBCUs, the Congressional Award Board, Mississippi Agriculture Museum and the Mid-Delta Consortium.

He served as president of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, president of the Presidents' Council, Mississippi Institutions of Higher Education and past-president of the Mississippi Association of Colleges. While in Chicago, he was a member of the Chicago Bar Association, LaSalle Street Business Council, Beverly Area Local Development Corporation, YMCA, Chicago Youth Success Foundation, Kohl Children's Museum and Illinois Committee on Black Concerns in Higher Education.

His own field of academic study was development of management theory as it applies to-profit and not-for-profit organizations.

He also served as president of the Chicago Board of Education, dean of the College of Business at Chicago State University and vice president at Olive-Harvey College in Chicago.

In addition to the three degrees from Northwestern, he had a master's of business administration from Governors State University, University Park, Ill.

Alcorn is on rolling hills first occupied by the Presbyterian Church-based Oakland College. The university was named for Gov. James L. Alcorn in 1871 and became the first state-supported higher institution for blacks in the United States. It is the nation's oldest public land-grant institution. 

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‘He Treated Us Like Family,' Student Says

By Constance Anderson-White
The Vicksburg Post , August 21, 2006
http://www.vicksburgpost.com/articles/2006/08/21/news/news02.txt    

LORMAN - Alcorn State University students and staff were mourning today - the first day of classes - the loss of a man they say was more than a campus president - he was their brother and a father figure.

Flags flew at half-staff around campus as students and faculty continued to remember the school's president, Dr. Clinton Bristow Jr.

“It's unfortunate and untimely,” said Dr. John E. Walls of Vicksburg, a 1968 ASU graduate and immediate past president of the university's National Alumni Association. Walls is deputy superintendent for the Vicksburg Warren School District.

“We're all shocked at his untimely death,” Walls said, adding that Bristow had met with the alumni in Jackson when new officers were sworn just hours before he died.

Bristow's body was found by students Saturday night on the track at the 3,500-student university. He was a regular runner and was apparently alone when he died.

“This is the saddest thing that has ever happened to us,” said Jack Ubadi and Sophia Shafal, managers of the Alcorn Service Station since October.

“I was there,” said Shafal. “I started CPR before the ambulance arrived. When we found out it was Dr. Bristow, I started doing everything I could to save him. I was just praying for someone to help me.”

“Sophia did everything she could to help and I would have done the same,” said Ubadi. “She must have worked on him 30 or 40 minutes before the ambulance got here. When she found him, his left hand was on his heart and he was face down on the track.”

“I guess when it's your day, there's nothing anyone can do,” Ubadi said. “We didn't sleep at all last night. Nobody believes he's gone. He was like a brother to us.”

The students said Bristow was never too busy to care. He was at every school activity and he always listened.

“He was a father to those of us that didn't have fathers,” said Jermaine Pruitt, a senior football player from Columbus. “I had a strong relationship with Dr. Bristow. I used to talk to him about everything - football, school, everything. He was there through the good times and the bad times.”

Pruitt's teammate agreed.

“He treated us like family,” said Todd Johnson, a junior football player from Fort Lauderdale. “I met him at freshmen orientation and he never forgot my name. He spoke to me every time he saw me and asked how I was doing.”

Bristow spoke with the football team after Friday's evening practice and told them to have a good season and bring the SWAC championship home to Alcorn.

“We just saw him,” said Johnson. “I didn't want to believe. He's done a lot for this campus and this is going to hard to deal with.”

Other students are concerned about whether the momentum of progress on their campus during Bristow's 11 years will continue.

“We're all in a state of shock,” said Whitney Battle, a junior political science major from Gulfport. “I don't know how things are going to be done. Who's going to run the campus?”

“Bristow was doing great things on this campus with the renovations,” she said. “Just look at everything he has done and the things he had planned. He really cared about this campus and making things better for the students.”

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Alcorn State U. President Is Found Dead on Campus Running Track

By Scott Carlson,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 21, 2006

The president of Alcorn State University, Clinton Bristow Jr., died on Saturday, two days before the start of classes, apparently while jogging around the university's running track.

His body was found by a student. An emergency-response unit tried unsuccessfully to revive him.

Christopher Cason, director of university relations, said on Sunday that the cause of death was still unknown, but that Mr. Bristow, who was 57, was known to take daily walks and runs.

“He was in impeccable shape,” Mr. Cason said.  

Mr. Cason said the president’s death would not alter the opening of the university’s academic year, which starts today. (August  21^st) “He would not have wanted that,” Mr. Cason said. “He would have wanted to push forward the academic agenda. While we are deeply in mourning, classes are going on as usual.” 

Mr. Bristow, who had been president of Alcorn State for 11 years, recently had been overseeing a series of capital-improvement projects at the historically black institution, including the construction of a biotechnology center.  

Before coming to Alcorn State, Mr. Bristow had bee dean of the College of Business at Chicago State University and a vice president at Olive-Harvey College, in Chicago.  

In a statement on the university’s web site, Thomas Meridith, commissioner of Mississippi’s governing board for higher education, praised Mr. Bristow as “extraordinary individual and educator,” saying that “his love for Alcorn and its students was remarkable.”

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If you 'd like to express your sympathy and condolences please send them to
1 Presidential Drive, Alcorn State, MS, 39096-7500
or e-mail to elenad@alcorn.edu