Spelman College launches search for new president

“The Board of Trustees is committed to a process that will engage the entire Spelman community to ensure the next leader continues Spelman’s legacy of academic excellence and global leadership,” the private Atlanta school said in a statement last week.

While it did not offer a timeline, the college said it will be forming a search committee and taking community input throughout the process.

Students and alumni say they want someone who will focus on affordability, help prepare students for a changing job market, and honor the culture that they believe sets Spelman apart from other colleges.

“Our mantra is ‘A Choice to Change the World,’ and that, for me, is much more than words on a piece of paper. That really is our North Star,” said Kelly Beaty English, class of 2002. “It’s a shared mission. It’s a shared understanding of what our place in the world is, what our responsibility is to the world and to each other.”

That culture, said English, chief of staff at the Atlanta Housing Authority, is Spelman’s “secret sauce.” The next president must be someone who, “especially now in this climate, has a true understanding of what that (culture) is, and then how it serves the college and how it serves the women who come through the college.”

Alisha Gordon graduated from Spelman in 2004. Now that her daughter is a senior at the school, Gordon hopes her alma mater will select a leader who can get students ready for the workforce. For her, that means embracing artificial intelligence.

“AI is going to be really critical to how our students are able to not only matriculate through college and graduate school, but how they enter the workplace,” Gordon said. “I’m really interested in a president that is aware of the role of AI, how that is showing up both in academics and in workplaces, and really thinking about, how do we prepare students?”

Cori’Anna White, a senior and president of the student government association, said her classmates feel a sense of urgency around jobs. The unemployment rate for Black women nationwide rose from 5.5% in August 2024 to 6.7% this past August, and roughly 300,000 have reportedly left the workforce in recent months.

“We all know that Spelmanites are likely a part of that number,” said White. She wants a president who can help students have jobs or internships lined up when they graduate. “That not only facilitates financial stability, but it also ensures that we’re truly able to be a part of our community and use those degrees that we came to Spelman to get,” White said.

Credit: Cori'Anna White

Credit: Cori'Anna White

To get those degrees, students need to be able to afford tuition. Ryan Bates, vice president of the student government association, said many of her classmates depend on financial aid to attend Spelman. More than 90% of 2,700 students received some form of financial assistance last year, according to the school.

Gordon graduated from the school 21 years ago. “And I still think about the cost it was for my parents to send me there, the amount of student loans that I still carry,” said Gordon, who now owes $62,000 of what was originally a $140,000 loan. “And how that cost has doubled now that my daughter is there.”

With recent legislation bringing changes to the federal student loan system, and with President Donald Trump’s administration slashing multi-million-dollar grants at universities nationwide (Spelman has had more than $5 million worth of its grants canceled, according to data from Grant Witness), Bates wants to ensure that needy students and the school have adequate funding.

“Something that I’m looking for is someone who can maybe go to the Georgia State Capitol and say, ‘Look, Spelman needs this,’” Bates said. “I do hope that the president can come and help change Spelman for the better, with that being new dorms, new food policies, anything that Spelmanites need.”

This summer, the school renovated two historic residence halls, updating them with central air conditioning. It plans to begin construction of a new 660-bed dorm in May.

Ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the top HBCU in the nation for nearly two decades, Spelman is known for its academics. Nikki Tinsley Harland hopes the next president will continue to raise that bar. “So we produce more doctors, more scientists, more instructors, more teachers, more writers, more business leaders,” said Harland, who graduated in 1997 and is now the CEO of a hospitality group. “There’s no other space like Spelman, especially for African American women.”

Thus, it’s tough to get into Spelman. The admissions rate last year was 24%. About 80% of Spelman students graduate within six years, well above the national average of roughly 60%.

Gayle’s two years at Spelman was well short of the six-year average tenure for most U.S. college presidents. The recent average presidential tenure at HBCUs has been three years, according to some research.

Students and alumni alike — heartened by the tenure of interim president Brewer, a member of its class of 1984 — appear confident the school will ultimately make the right hire.

“My hope is just that we have someone who will be prepared for such a time as this,” said English. “I don’t think Spelman has failed us yet.”

Correction: Alisha Gordon graduated from Spelman College 21 years ago. An earlier version of this article had a different time frame from when she graduated.