Agenia Walker Clark
Photo: Angelina Castillo
Fisk University’s Cravath Hall sits at a special intersection of history and the future. The 93-year-old neo-Gothic building houses card catalogs left over from its time as a library, relics from the university’s 158-year existence, and astonishing murals from modernist painter and Harlem Renaissance leader Aaron Douglas. It’s also home to the office of Fisk’s administrative staff, including its newest president Dr. Agenia Walker Clark.
Replacing board of trustees chair Frank Sims — who served as interim president after the sudden departure of Vann Newkirk in August 2022 — Clark assumed leadership of the historically Black university earlier this month. She comes to Fisk after 19 years as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee. Throughout her career, Clark has led human resources departments for various institutions, among other roles, and she has taught as a volunteer instructor at Fisk. Clark serves on the boards of FirstBank Financial Corp. and Belmont and Simmons universities, and is a trustee emerita on the board of the Haslam School of Business at the University of Tennessee.
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