USC Upstate Chancellor Dr. Bennie Harris leads by example
Many years ago, while driving a tractor on his family’s farm in Mississippi, Bennie Harris would imagine himself as the state’s governor, delivering his inauguration speech.
He was just a kid then, sunbaked in the 95-degree heat, fantasizing about something beyond this humble plot of land. His audience for this daydream of political triumph were the fields of soybeans, wheat, and cotton that stretched out before him. The groan of the tractor’s engine served as a placeholder for the roaring approval of the crowd.
“That place of imagination is where I lived for so much of my childhood,” says Harris, who now serves as the chancellor of the University of South Carolina Upstate.
Looking back on those childhood dreams, he says they never seemed out of reach to him, even though the pathway to such heights were so blocked for a small-time farm boy, especially a Black kid growing up in the deep South.
But it is precisely this habit of imagination, of nourishing one’s own belief in life’s potential, that now guides him today in his role as both the chancellor of USC Upstate and a local civic leader.
“I think that’s what I want our students to recognize—that higher education is not just about preparing students for the job that exists today,” he says. “It’s about preparing them for the job that exists tomorrow, or the jobs that are not even developed yet, and in that regard, what we’re really striving to do here is teach people how to think, how to innovate, and how to see what’s possible, even if it’s not there at the moment.”
Habit of Imagination with Dr. Bennie Harris
For his efforts, Harris—who, since those days on his family’s farm, has earned the title of Dr. Harris—is now being honored at the 2024 Charitable Giving Awards with the Education Spirit Award, recognizing a career spent expanding the possibilities and imaginations of countless students.
It’s a moment that he says ties directly back to his roots.
“If there’s one strength about me, it’s that there are very few events and activities in my life that I view as isolated,” he said during an interview after the award’s announcement. “In some way, I always think about how it integrates into a different narrative. What I learned in farming are skills and lessons that I now apply to higher education: a desire to always be fixing and figuring out a better way to improve things.”
His own life story is a case study for what can happen when one remains open to new opportunities. He started his education earning a degree in engineering from Mississippi State University because, as he says, “the pathways for African American students who were smart in math or science was either to go the route of medicine or go the route of engineering to get oneself out of poverty.”
Engineering was not his passion, and he found himself more interested in broader areas of justice, leadership development, and fairness. His fellow engineering students were constantly asking him why he spent so much time working with student organizations when he should’ve been in the lab.
But his engineering degree did have the effect of honing his skills in process-oriented problem-solving, skills he hoped to apply to society writ large.
He found his calling in education, earning a Ph.D. in strategic educational marketing and then rising up the ranks of universities before joining USC Upstate in 2021, where he now cultivates communication and collaboration between staff, faculty, and students.
Each day, he strives to strike the right balance between macro institutional goals and the needs of each individual student.
“When you’re in a job where your vocation and your advocation align, that’s where your passion is,” he says. “That’s how you really see how God has called you to utilize the gifts He’s given you.”
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C. Dan Adams, Founder/CEO, The Capital Corporation, sponsor of the Education Spirit Award
Life of leadership
Harris has held leadership positions at:
- Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee
- DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois
- University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Washington State University in Pullman, Washington
- Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia
- University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina
