The State April 3, 2014 Allen University’s new president hopes to spark energy on small campus By Carolyn Click The interim president of Allen University has set some determined goals for the small, historically black school that sits at Harden and Taylor streets, including restoring financial credibility, raising academic standards and creating a small learning community where faculty and students work closely together. “One of the things I’m looking forward to is creating a campus that really embraces the students,” said Lady June Cole, who took over the leadership at Allen in September, following the resignation of President Pamela Martin Wilson. The board at the African Methodist Episcopal Church-affiliated school has not launched a presidential search, and plans to review Cole’s performance at the end of one year in the interim post. On campus, students say Cole has high aspirations for a school that has suffered from financial instability, low admissions standards and a failure to ensure that freshmen were able to graduate in four years. This month, Cole, with help of Allen alumni, is opening an Honors House along Pine Street where top students can come together to study and do research. “She is looking to improve Allen,” said Kendrick Barnes, an English major from Barnwell County who said it will be up to the students to fulfill those expectations. “I see a phenomenal amount of energy right now,” said Charlene Spearen, chairwoman of the humanities department and an assistant vice president of academic affairs. “We are writing grants. Faculty have been attending conferences with students. We are talking about summer camps that we are doing. “I can honestly say faculty here support her,” Spearen said. “She has a fantastic vision and has stepped up to the plate. She really knows at the ground level where we need to go.” Seeing progress Fred Sheheen, who serves on Allen’s board of trustees, said Cole has “a real grasp” of what is going on at the institution. He said Cole and other top administrations are extremely sensitive to the necessity of retaining accreditation by SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which issued a warning to Allen late last year. The board of trustees of the SACS Commission on Colleges took the action Dec. 9 because of issues over financing and financial stability, its governing board, student achievement and compliance with Title IV program responsibilities related to the administration of federal student aid. A report will be issued in June after a special committee visits Allen in late April. The SACS board of trustees will have the option to remove the warning without an additional report; keep the warning in place and request another inquiry; continue accreditation and place the institution on probation; or lift its SACS accreditation. “I think they will see progress,” Cole said Monday, noting that Allen hired a new chief financial officer in January. “Whether they will have seen enough progress between January and April, I don’t know.” Sheheen, the trustee, said he believes Cole is working hard. “I think during this period there seems to be a sense of stability and forward motion on campus,” he said. The financial piece of the Allen puzzle was among Cole’s top priorities when she moved from being a vice president of academic affairs to the president’s office. But she said she also wanted to modernize the campus, which does not have the amenities that larger universities take for granted. With the assistance of a $10,000 gift from the South Carolina AME church’s lay organization, the university’s wireless network was completed. “Allen is an old campus,” she said, noting that the interior of the historic Chappelle Auditorium is now undergoing renovation. “Our library is a beautiful building but it needs some work. We want to make sure that when people come on campus and visit the campus it is a place that you want to sit down and work.” Allen has lost students, with enrollment hovering about 580, Cole said, a number she would like to raise. Three years ago, the enrollment was about 700. With an open admission policy, Allen has traditionally been a haven for first-generation college students, but it also has suffered from poor graduation statistics. In its latest college rankings, U.S. News & World Report indicated that Allen had a 10 percent graduation rate, which means that 90 percent of entering freshman do not graduate in four years. But Spearen said the caliber of student has improved with the university’s latest figures showing a 23 percent graduation rate. Nurturing students Cole said she believes Allen’s appeal is its small learning environment, where faculty take interest in individual students, and its religious environment. She said some students have gone to larger universities but returned to Allen. Jaquanda Lee of Houston said she went to Francis Marion University and USC before coming to Allen. “I feel like I get more things done here,” she said. In an effort to generate campus closeness, students are required to attend a weekly 11 a.m. gathering called CARS, for Cultural, Academic and Religion Series. “We are going to let in students who typically would not be able to get into other institutions,” Cole said. “But we have the faculty and staff who can nurture the students.” The annual tuition is $19,500, which includes room and board. Most students carry student loans, she said. Cole said the school already has hosted some business seminars that have drawn attention to the campus. Besides the visit from the SACS team, spring and summer will bring some positive attention to Allen and its renewed outlook. On Friday, the university will host the 9th annual Richard Allen Awards gala, a splashy silent auction and dinner at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center that will raise funds for the United Negro College Fund. With tickets starting at $125 per person, the affair is expected to draw between 600 and 700 alumni and friends. The university also has invited composer and pianist Roland Carter, a University of Tennessee professor emeritus, to lead the weeklong Hall Johnson summer music camp, July 6-11, for high school choral students. The camp is named in honor of 1908 Allen alumnus Hall Johnson, who was an eminent arranger and conductor of the Negro spiritual. Allen University has weathered upheaval in the president’s office during the last 15 years but Bishop Richard Franklin Norris, leader of the 7th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church which oversees the Columbia institution, has vowed to make Allen a top priority. Cole is the third woman to occupy the president’s office, either full time or as interim president. Her predecessor, Wilson, was the institution’s first female and first Baptist to assume the office after a presidential search. One other woman, Sylvia Swinton, led the institution in an interim capacity in the mid-1980s. Wilson, who was inaugurated in March 2012, left last fall. Allen University was formally organized in 1880 at its Harden Street location, although seeds for its growth were sown 10 years earlier when an AME bishop founded the Payne Institute on 150 acres of land in Cokesbury in Greenwood County. The Payne Institute was relocated to Columbia by the Rt. Rev. William Fisher Dickerson and renamed Allen. It is the only AME institution named for the denomination’s founder, the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, the first consecrated bishop of the church. In 1787, Allen led a group of black worshipers out of the white St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church because of continuing discrimination. The denomination was formally established in 1816 as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which now has a presence on five continents. Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/03/3366529/allen-universitys-new-president.html#storylink=cpy SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/2014meeting-form.html for the October 26-28, 2014 HBCU Library Alliance 6th Membership Meeting in Atlanta GA!