Lance Tatum looks to build connections with students

“There’s a story that goes, the person that plants the tree doesn’t benefit from the shade that goes to come after it,” Northwest presidential candidate Lance Tatum said. That story serves as an analogy to how Tatum sees leadership at a university: plant seeds of improvement to make an institution better, even if he’s not there to see it.

Tatum was the final of four candidates to visit campus during the month on Feb. 16, and despite the ice and snow, participated in multiple forums and toured campus buildings throughout the day.

Tatum said he and his wife, Jill, were excited to see the cold weather, coming all the way from Alabama for the visit. Tatum is the senior vice chancellor at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. He has spent the majority of his life in the South, earning his bachelor’s and master’s from Troy State University and his doctorate in sport management from Florida State University.

Since then, the last 28 years of his life have been dedicated to enhancing the education experience for others. The first 10 of those years he spent teaching sports and fitness management.

“My life changed because of education,” Tatum said. “I was on a trajectory that would have never led to this moment and because I was able to connect with faculty at a university, it changed the way in which I’ve lived my life. ”

His passion for sports sparked when he was young, but he said the first time he was really noticed by a teacher outside of athletics was in his 10th grade English class.

“I will forever remember Barbara Hicks,” he said. “She changed my life. She saw something in me that had nothing to do with my ability to participate in athletics, but she saw something in me that had to do with leadership.”

That may have been the first time he was noticed for his leadership, but not the last, as he’s held many different administrative positions in his career. Starting as a teacher and moving to a faculty athletics representative, he has since climbed the ladder to the vice chancellor position and is looking to take the next step in his career as president of a university.

In his previous positions, his main goal was to make an impact on student’s lives.

“What I’d like to be able to bring … into Northwest is a deep passion for student success and a deep understanding of what it takes to create that type of connection to students,” he said.