This article by Allison Shirreffs, contributing writer for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, was posted on May 21, 2025 in advance of the CFO awards on May 22.
Dawn Alston, vice president for business and financial affairs and chief financial officer and treasurer at Spelman College, was named a 2025 CFO of the Year Finalist in the Education category by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Nearly three decades ago, Dawn Alston, who has a master’s degree in environmental toxicology, started her career at Spelman College as a scientist and adjunct professor. When applying for grants, she learned about compliance and helped Spelman develop its own compliance program. She then moved into budgeting, got her MBA and, in 2019, became Spelman’s vice president of business and financial affairs, CFO and treasurer.
Alston’s goal is to ensure “that finances empower academia rather than hinder it,” she wrote in her CFO of the Year awards survey submitted to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
“The higher education sector must find a way to permanently reduce its dependency on government resources, create programs tailored to the evolving needs of today's and tomorrow's students, and leverage cost-saving measures to promote financial resilience.”
To think strategically about how higher education might face these challenges, Alston is studying business models from diverse industries.
“It’s really important that we think innovatively and be proactive as opposed to reactive,” she said.
Over the past year, Alston has worked with Spelman’s leadership to improve infrastructure on the campus — adding an 86,000-square-foot Center for Innovation and the Arts and reopening two new residence halls. Alston also established a partnership with the Westside Future Fund to pilot a pathway to homeownership for Spelman employees.
Alston’s Big Number: $1.3 billion. “That is the number we would like to have in the endowment to push us towards being a no-loan institution for all of our students.”