He thought he'd be a short-timer, 30 years later Wayne County educator is still here

Georgea Kovanis    Detroit Free Press | Updated Aug. 10, 2025, 7:59 a.m. ET

To read the original article in the Detroit Free Press visit: Longtime community college educator wins Shining Light award

Maybe, Curtis Ivery thinks, growing up in segregated Amarillo, Texas, where he saw so many people like him — poor, Black — passed over, is the reason he has spent his adult life working in education, helping children, adults, and families reach their potential.

“I became a very giving person,” Ivery, who is 76, said recently. “I just never allowed myself to do anything other than care for people. … I just always said if I ever had an opportunity to be in a leadership role, I’d do everything I could to make sure people would be OK.”

For the past 30 years, Ivery — a husband, a father, a grandfather, author on topics such as fatherhood, leadership and education — has been doing that at the Wayne County Community College District, where he is chancellor of the sprawling six-campus education system that covers Detroit and all of Wayne County.

And because of those works, he is the recipient of the 2025 Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, part of the Shining Light Awards, presented annually by the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition and the Detroit Free Press. Shine, the beloved and respected editor and publisher of the Detroit Free Press, died in 2007, leaving behind a legacy of cooperation and unity as a booster of Detroit, the metro area, and the people who inhabit it.

“Dr. Ivery has moved the Wayne County Community College … to a level that was heretofore unseen,” said the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, pastor of Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, and a fan of Ivery’s work at the once-troubled community college. “He came to the college at a time when people were saying, ‘Close the doors, turn the lights off!’ … He's moved to make certain that the campus is on solid financial grounds. … In addition to that, he’s just a nice guy. He loves the college, he supports the people, and he’s a community person.”

Football was Ivery's ticket out of Amarillo. He won a scholarship to Texas A&M-Kingsville (then Texas A&I), though his career on the field didn’t last long. “After the first year, that was it for football,” he said. He found other pursuits, academic and beyond, more interesting. “I got smarter,” he said. “I became president of the African American Society. … I was the first Black to be elected president of the student body. I got involved in a lot of things that enlightened me.”

After undergrad, Ivery applied to Harvard Law School, but never heard back. He did graduate work at West Texas State and received his doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Arkansas. In addition to education posts, Ivery served as head of the human services department for the state of Arkansas, becoming the first African American ever to be appointed to a governor’s cabinet—under then-Governor Bill Clinton.

Wayne County Community College was in tumult when Ivery arrived from Texas’ Mountain View College (part of the Dallas County Community College District) in 1995, marked by infighting among board members and a revolving door of administrators—three presidents in five years—and a less-than-great reputation. “My colleagues thought I’d lost my mind,” Ivery said. Then again, he added, “I’ve always been a fighter and I love a challenge and, boy, did I have one.”

He figured he would stay a couple of years before moving on to another job. But he never left—and has no plans to do so.

Under his tenure as chancellor, WCCCD has expanded its footprint, improved facilities, and updated its course offerings. About 12,000 students enroll in degree programs for the fall and spring semesters. About 40,000 enroll in non-degree programs, including vocational programs, each year.

“I was walking down the hallway at one of the campuses and one of the students stopped me as they were coming out of the classroom, and I thought they were going to complain,” Ivery recalled. “He said, ‘We love you. … We just love the furniture in the classroom, we love the smell of fresh paint in the rooms, the computers and everything.’ We had just passed the millage and bought a lot of things for the classroom. … It was as simple as having nice furniture in the classroom and the walls painted.”

And once students feel welcomed and valued, they can get to the business of learning. “I always thought that community colleges were better than universities,” Ivery said. “I think we’re committed to teaching. We’re not research-oriented; we don’t use teaching assistants in the classroom. We have teachers who are so legitimately committed to pedagogy and learning outcomes and students move to the next level.”

It's education that teaches people to think critically, to process information. And, Ivery says, with that “somehow you begin to think in ways that teach you love and passion for people.”

The Detroit Free Press and Metropolitan Affairs Coalition’s Shining Light Award highlights the importance of regional leadership and cooperation to the success of southeast Michigan, honoring leaders whose work crosses geographic, institutional or cultural boundaries.