Franklin College’s acting president has witnessed the small liberal arts school weather events that could have doomed it, but didn’t.
In 1985, multiple fires ravaged the college, taking out Old Main, office space and a dormitory. College officials had serious talks about the viability of the college’s future following the blazes, said Kerry Prather, acting president.
Franklin College was rebuilt.
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The economic downturn of 2008 put some other small liberal arts colleges in precarious financial positions. Some had to lay off faculty, struggled with plummeting enrollment numbers and cut academic programs.
Franklin College did not.
Prather was named acting president this week after former president Thomas Minar was arrested and charged with multiple crimes in Wisconsin.
Prather was the men’s basketball coach and then athletic director, too. He helped the college overcome its struggles. Now, he is determined to see the college through the most recent crisis in its long history.
He is tasked with healing and leading the college after Minar was ousted. The Franklin College Board of Trustees hand-picked Prather to step into the top leadership position on Tuesday, one day after the college announced Minar had been terminated.
College officials were already searching for a new president after Minar announced last summer he would be leaving the college this summer. The search for the college’s next permanent president is ongoing, and the board of trustees is not altering the search tactics or timeline, said James V. Due, chair of the college’s board of trustees.
Whether Prather is a candidate for the permanent job is unclear, and he has not thought that far ahead, he said in an interview on Thursday.
“I am, right now, a candidate for Friday,” he said. “And if Friday goes well, I am going to be a candidate for Saturday.”
He is not involved in the college’s search for a new president, he said.
Prather started his career at Franklin College in 1982, when he was hired as an assistant men’s basketball coach and worked in student affairs. He was promoted to head coach a year later, and took on the additional leadership role of athletic director in 1990.
The college grew its athletic offerings under Prather, offering more sports for students and upgrading and building new athletic facilities. In November 2018, Prather achieved his 500th career victory with the school’s basketball team during a season-opening win over Otterbein University, according to a news release from the college.
For much of his career, he also served as an executive leadership representative in four president’s cabinets, including William Martin, Paul Marian, Jay Moseley and Minar. Previously, he has served as acting vice-president for administration and acting vice president for enrollment management.
Each of those presidential eras had their own successful projects, and much of the credit for that success goes to those presidents, Prather said.
Martin is known for saving the college after the fires, including raising money for rebuilding and increasing enrollment efforts. Marian and his wife, Susan, invested in making sure the school functioned smoothly and made several aesthetic improvements. Sport offerings nearly doubled under Moseley, who also led the school through the recession without losing academic programs or laying off faculty.
Prather was on the President’s Cabinet for all of those events.
“From each of them, I just learned so much, to not just watch up close, but to be a partner in those efforts,” Prather said. “By the time you count up all of those experiences, it amounts to a crash course in how to be a college president.”
Prather left a job teaching English and coaching basketball at South Decatur High School to come to Franklin. He had taught and coached at three Indiana high schools in five years after graduating from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education.
He was drawn to becoming an English teacher because he had an aptitude for the subject, and he decided to coach when he was a student at Loogootee High School in Martin County.
Coaching at Franklin College seemed to be the next step in what Prather dreamed would be a successful coaching career at a Division 1 school. The college’s football coach, Stewart Faught, warned him that Franklin College and its students, faculty and staff have a way of becoming a long-term home for people.
Franklin College is hard to leave, Prather said.
“(He said), ‘You just be careful, because this place has a way of kind of grabbing ahold of you,’” Prather said.
Franklin College grabbed hold of Prather’s family, too.
His wife, Cindy, served as a faculty member and chair in the college’s education department for 23 years. Both of their children, Katie and Robbie, graduated from the college. Katie teaches at Triton Central Elementary School. Robbie played basketball for his dad and is in his third year of law school at IU.
The key to Franklin College’s success is the people, and the college has thrived by putting people — students and faculty — at the forefront of its mission. Most of the faculty are veterans of teaching at the school, and the college has a mission to always put the students first, Prather said.
The board of trustees approached Prather and asked him to take on the role of acting president. Prather loves the school and was told he was the one best able to do the job while the college finds a permanent replacement. It would have been unconscionable to turn that down under the circumstances, Prather said.
“I could not possibly say no,” he said.
When the spring semester starts the first week of February, Prather has plans to move faculty, staff and students past the events that led to Minar’s firing. Franklin College has an immersive term in January, where students travel, are placed in internships or take a single class on a modern topic.
But the board made it clear they wanted a leader, not a caretaker, Prather said.
The key to moving the campus past the events will be to reassure faculty, staff and students, and offer them certainty and equilibrium, he said.
Part of that includes meeting face to face with students during their various activities and addressing the school as a whole. Franklin College has too much going on and must continue to move forward, Prather said.
“I am working on student recruitment and facilities, and I’m working on advancement. There is no shortage of things to do,” he said. “My No. 1 goal above and beyond all else is to take good care of the most important resources we have, which are the human ones.”
Prather has appointed head baseball coach and assistant athletic director Lance Marshall as interim athletics director, and Brian Lebowitz as associate head basketball coach. Prather will continue to help with coaching duties, as the basketball season is in full swing, Prather said.
In the hours and days following Prather’s promotion, previous presidents reached out to offer their support, he said.
“They all want very much to see FC emerge from this challenge stronger than ever,” Prather said. “I’ve literally struggled to keep up with the emails and texts I’ve received, all of them positive and encouraging.”
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Name: Kerry Prather
Place in history: Acting president of Franklin College
Education: Bachelor’s degree in English from Indiana University; master’s degree in education from Indiana University.
Job history: English teacher at several Indiana high schools; assistant men’s basketball coach and student affairs employee in 1982; head basketball coach since 1983; and athletic director since 1990.
Family: Wife Cindy, who was a Franklin College faculty member for 23 years; adult children, Katie and Robbie. Both children graduated from Franklin College.
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"This place has a way of kind of grabbing ahold of you."
— Kerry Prather, acting president, Franklin College
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