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A n overwhelming majority of women and men who lead HBCUs as presidents emerge to the job from within academia. But not Helene Gayle. A pediatrician and epidemiologist by training and experience, Gayle has served as director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention at the federal Centers for Disease Control. She also led the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation’s HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program, overseeing the program’s $300 million dollar budget. She served as assistant surgeon general and rear admiral in the United States Public Health Service. She was the president and CEO of CARE, one of the globe’s largest international poverty- fighting organizations. And she was president of the Chicago Community Trust, one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the United States. Then in 2022, Spelman College called. Before that, Gayle hadn’t thought much about leading an institution of higher education. But the timing and the place, she said, was right. “I think a lot of the things that I brought from my public health, global health and economic development background are very much in keeping with the things that Spelman sees
itself moving torward over the next few years,” Gayle said. “My focus has always been around equity and social justice and how do we weave together and think about how we can not only have excellence in our educational and academic and student life programs, but also how do we give back to the community that surrounds us where we have these incredibly dynamic educational institutions that are housed in a neighborhood that still has high
and much higher than the national graduation rate—42%-for African American students. While the average rate of alumni giving at HBCUs has been steady around 10% for decades, according to Forbes magazine, Spelman’s alumni giving rate is about 48%. “A Spelman degree can be put up against any other liberal arts college,” Gayle said. “We just made it into the top 50 liberal arts colleges in this country. So it's not just that we're the ‘No. 1 HBCU,’ we are also the number 39 liberal arts school in the nation. So young people can come here, and they can go to any graduate school, the Ivys, the Ivy Pluses, because when you come here and get a Spelman education, it puts you on the trajectory and gives you the kind of education that allows you to compete with the best of the best throughout the nation. “I'm a physician at a school where health sciences, careers in health and in the STEM fields in general are a high priority,” Gayle said. “I've spent a good part of my life in the global arena and now am at a school where we believe that we have a global mission, and that being part of the global world is an important part of what enriches our students and also provides opportunities for students from other parts of the globe to understand
needs and how can we be better citizens in our own community?”
Plus, the Buffalo, New York, native who was raised by a social worker mother and a businessman father sees Atlanta as her second home, after spending 20 years at the CDC. “It seemed to all come together,” Gayle said. So, Helene Gayle, the medical doctor turned public health icon and leader of two of the largest foundations in the world and the United States, became the 11th president of Spelman College in Atlanta on July 1, 2022. She took over a 142-year-old institution that, relatively, is in good shape. Like other HBCUs, applications for admission are trending up—22% from 2020 to 2021 while admissions during that time increased by more than 18%. The college’s graduation rate of 76% within six years is the highest among all HBCUs, according to the school,
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