Paul Leavy | Valdosta State UniversityDr. Richard Carvajal is scheduled to take office Jan. 1 as the new Valdosta State University president. 

VALDOSTA — A self-described man of stories, Valdosta State University’s new president select, Dr. Richard Carvajal, has enough true-life tales to make any Hollywood producer salivate.

Like growing up dirt poor in rural Oklahoma, spending his elementary school nights and weekends waxing floors and scrubbing toilets for his father’s janitorial business. His pay was a Hostess cherry pie and a Pepsi, a “golden” reward.

Or when his parents divorced, leaving him even poorer and forcing him to live out of his car during high school as a homeless teenager. He still managed to graduate in a class of just 28 students.

On Jan. 1, Carvajal, 45, is slated to take control of university with a $200 million budget in a region that he already calls home.

Though new to Valdosta State University, Carvajal is no stranger to higher education or South Georgia.

Armed with multiple degrees, Carvajal has served in a slew of administrative positions at six colleges in four states. Two of the jobs were as president of Georgia universities. He’s currently the interim president at Darton State College.

He snagged the top position at VSU by beating out several other candidates — including current Interim President Kelli Brown — in an intensive search that included campus tours and public forums.

During the interview process, Carvajal made it clear his intention was not to come in guns blazing with a rigid plan to transform VSU. Instead, he wants to develop the vision as he goes, easing into the job and speaking with the school’s veterans before making major decisions.

“When I came in, I was real honest with folks and I said, ‘I don’t have a magic pill. I don’t come in saying that I have all the answers,’” said Carvajal, who has been working in higher education for 25 years. “But what I do bring is a history of working with institutions and the folks who are already there, who in many cases already know the things that could be better.

“Why would I assume that before I’ve even started, day one, that I know what the issues and opportunities are better than those who have already been invested in VSU?

“I really want to learn from them. That includes community leaders, faculty, staff, and it definitely includes students as well.

“I will be out a lot, both on campus and in the community, asking folks what are their ideas, where do they think we need to focus our energies. Then we’ll come up with that collective vision and then create a plan for how we can get there.”

When Carvajal starts Jan. 1, he will become the seventh person to hold the position of VSU president in the last 10 years.

Half of the previous six presidents were interims who served for only a year or less.

As Carvajal assumes a position that has seen unusually high turnover and instability in the past decade, he said he wants to be “all in” when it comes to the job. He’s looking to settle in not only professionally but also personally along with his family, which includes his wife of 23 years, Cheryl, another long-time educator, their daughter Crystal, 15, and son Brandon, 12.

“I made it very clear that if I was going to make a move, I really wanted to go someplace where I could be for a while,” Carvajal said. “We’re not coming in with any set number of years that we expect.

“We’re moving there to make Valdosta our home. We already think of South Georgia as our home. We’re really excited about getting engaged in the Valdosta community.

“My hope is that we can be there for a long time and together, working with the folks there, we can build an institution that they’re even more proud of in the future than they are today.”

In addition to presidents coming and going at a rapid rate, another issue that has haunted VSU for several years is declining enrollment — a.k.a. loss of money. 

After steadily dropping for five years from about 13,000 to 11,000, the university managed to gain a small increase in students for the Fall 2016 semester.

One of Carvajal’s main focuses will be to capitalize on the enrollment momentum and keep it going, he said. While he believes the college has done a great job recruiting students along Interstate 75 from Valdosta to Atlanta, he said the school hasn’t done as great a job pulling students in from locations to the east and west.

Carvajal said he was drawn to VSU because of its influence as the region’s comprehensive university, but also because of his personal ties to South Georgia.

“I have a real love and affinity for South Georgia,” Carvajal said. “It’s really become my home in the time that I’ve been here. I don’t think there’s any institution that has a chance to make a bigger impact in the lives of the people that means something to me.”

Carvajal’s love for South Georgia was born out of a painful, trying point in his life.

In another of his larger-than-life stories, Carvajal told of the time he was traveling to a bucket-list Olympic triathlon in 2014 when he got a stomachache. The pain got worse and worse, leading him to “literally” crawl into an emergency room near Birmingham, Ala.

After almost dying that night, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease that few ever recover from.

“As I went through surgery and I went through chemotherapy, we just got an incredible outpouring of support from South Georgia,” Carvajal said. “In fact, my mother was watching our children while I was in the hospital, and a few get-well cards came in the mail. The next day more came, and they just kept coming.

“We got plants and cards and cakes — you name it — certainly from a lot of people we did know, but it was amazing how many just heard about my story in South Georgia and wanted to lend their hand.

“We were on, I think, every prayer list in South Georgia. Even though I knew many of those places, I didn’t know anybody who went there.”

Carvajal’s mom taped up all the cards and well wishes to a glass door right behind his recovery area, where he saw them every day.

“It became a reality that the love and support of South Georgia was literally right behind me, and I know it played a big role in my recovery,” he said.

“This (job) is for me, in many ways, a chance to give something back to the folks who have given me so much. I’ll never fully be able to repay the debt. That’s impossible. But I look at this as an opportunity to service those that have, in so many ways, helped me.”

Carvajal’s passion for higher education is undeniable when he says educators are the “luckiest people in the world.”

“Who else gets to come to work everyday knowing that their mission that day is to go change somebody’s life?” he said. “That’s really what we do.”

When Carvajal was a homeless teenager, people helped him to get off the streets, finish high school and then attend a college in Oklahoma that “is in so many ways very, very similar to Valdosta State.”

His life experience is proof college changes lives, Carvajal said.

“When I went to college, I knew that was my shot,” he said. “It was really my one opportunity I had to find a better life.

“I truly believe we are in the opportunity business. At a place like VSU, everyday there are folks that are coming there whose story could put mine to shame, and yet they find their shot there to make something better of themselves.

“It’s why I feel we’re so blessed to get to do this work, and it’s especially why I think a place like VSU has the potential to change lives. I know it does because a place just like it saved mine.”

In his time away from work, one might find Carvajal relaxing by playing golf — although that doesn’t mean he’s “any good at it” — or enjoying family time. He’s also an avid college and high school football fan.

“I think that’s another area where I might have something in common with some folks in Valdosta,” Carvajal said wryly, just days after Valdosta High School’s football players won their 24th state championship, bringing yet another athletic accolade back to TitleTown USA.