A group of current and former Fort Valley State University (FVSU) students are rallying behind a popular tenured associate professor of computer science who was notified earlier this year that her position is being eliminated due to efforts to cut costs at the financially strapped public Black institution.
Students and alumni have recently petitioned Chancellor Hank M. Huckaby — who oversees the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia — asking him to rescind the one-year terminal contract that was issued to Dr. Cheryl A. Swanier, who has been employed at FVSU for the last eight years.
They argue that, under Swanier’s guidance, students were afforded the opportunity to engage in rigorous undergraduate research, travel to national conferences and were encouraged to apply to top-tier graduate programs across the country.
“She was very helpful. She gave us a lot of real-world advice,” said Jasmine Bowers, a first-year doctoral student in computer science at the University of Florida, who studied with Swanier from 2010 to 2013 during her undergraduate years at FVSU. “She was not a very easy teacher. She required a lot from us as students but that helped us in the long run.”
Bowers, who has been leading the campaign to pressure the board of regents to reverse their decision, said that Swanier, who is the only African-American in the four-person computer science department at the university, is a needed and welcome presence on campus.
“This is really frustrating and disappointing,” said Bowers, who has said that she will not continue to support the computer science department if Swanier is unfairly treated. “As a fellow female and African-American in computer science, it was imperative that I had someone who could relate to both, and from her I was able to gain insight on how to be successful and confident in myself.”
Charles Jones, the university’s attorney, declined to comment specifically on Swanier’s case, but said that the “policies that certainly dictate how we are supposed to proceed” with regard to eliminating tenured faculty were followed. “No way was Dr. Swanier singled out.”
