Student Government Association

An Evening With President Rosalind “Roz” Brewer and the Spelman Student Government Association: Questions and Answers

February 11, 2025

Memorable Experiences and Relationships at Spelman

Question: As an alumna of Spelman College, you likely have vivid memories of your time here as a student.

Answer: I took advantage of so much at Spelman when I was here. I worked quite a bit outside the gates of Spelman in community service; and as many of you all know, I became a woman of Alpha Kappa Alpha while I was here, and that was quite memorable for me. My best memory is around the relationships that I built and how they are still in my life today. So many of my Spelman sisters — I talk to them on a regular basis, so I’ll have to say that these are the relationships that are still in my life today. 

Leadership Journey and Strategic Leadership Skills

Question: How did your Spelman experiences shape your leadership journey and what advice would you offer to current students navigating their paths in a rapidly evolving world?

Answer: I think the biggest thing that impacted me was when I came to Spelman from Detroit, Michigan. I was the youngest of five and I came here feeling very insecure and not feeling welcomed. Not because Spelman didn’t embrace me, but I quickly realized that I had not adopted my own identity so when I came to an environment like this — “Oh, I want to be like her, and her, and her, and her.” And it took me a while to settle in and say, “Well who are you?” But this institution almost puts a mirror up to you every day and helps you understand who you are. You’re tested academically, socially – it’s just this pot that turns you into a self-reflected being. I think when I got into my worst, my hardest moments in a career environment, I always relied on that self-building that I had done when I was here at Spelman, and I knew that I was built for the tough things. I felt very prepared when I left Spelman.

Application of Corporate Leadership Skills to Spelman’s Success

Question: As the former CEO of top Fortune 500 companies such as Walgreens Boots Alliance and SAMS Club, you’ve led organizations through transformative periods. How do you plan to apply the strategic leadership skills and operational insights gained from the corporate world to Spelman’s success?

Answer: Coming into this role, I feel like timing is everything, and I typically would not think someone with my background could come into academia and really have an impact. But the moment is now and our institution is facing so many headwinds based on this administration and what we need to do to think about the next Spelman College.

In many of my experiences, I’ve been a change agent. I’ve been known as a transformative leader and there’s a reason for that which I will explain. But also having a vision and having seen so many institutions excel and not excel, I feel I bring a certain set of skills sets. But you know in my career, one of the ways I’ve been able to succeed is that many times I was given the absolute worst job out of the entire group, and I had to make sense of it.

There was no one to really help me because actually, they were giving me the worst jobs so I would leave; but I would never leave. I would stay and figure it out and then turn it into something so I am very used to looking at some of the toughest problems that no one else wants to deal with because I used to get thrown those all the time.

Now this one is not a tough deal that no one wants to handle because everyone wants to be at Spelman College, so I’m learning that now as the calls are coming in. I’m saying that now, with the overhang with the changes in the administration, we’re having to look at changes as an institution that is poised for growth.

If nothing was happening in our world right now, Spelman would still grow. And we’ve got to think about what could impede our growth right now, and how do we take them on. We’ve done some work in that space and we know what Spelman has the capability to do next.

It’s about focus — about first of all putting the worst problems on a sheet of paper and saying we’re going to solve them. And then bringing a team together with constant communication about Due North. I'm really big on Due North. Everybody’s got to know what Due North is.

Lastly, I would tell you it’s about building the team around you with strong collaboration and everyone wanting to see this institution win and that’s what we’re going to focus on.
One part of this is as we look at what might be taken away from us, how do we build contingency plans - so we’re really working on contingency plans for the College to keep us strong. The second thing that we’re doing is to understand that operationally we have some opportunities. As we have looked at root cause analysis which is something that I tend to do to say how did we get here? What's the problem?

Our technology needs to advance from where we are now; and I realize that much of our academics are not embedded in AI nor are we really enforcing that in everything we do. We’ve got to progress in that way. I think some basic tech enablement – systems talking to each other would be nice, right? Less manual tasks. Those kinds of things.

I think between technology, making sure we have contingency plans for the financial foot forward. I also think about student outcomes – so studying our student base – our future student base and saying how do they want to learn? Do they best learn, who do they want to be? What do they want to do in their lives after they leave Spelman? We have to keep asking ourselves that. If you take one message from here it’s about modernizing our institution but keeping our values very strong.

Addressing Housing and Parking Concerns

Question: Housing and parking are ongoing concerns for Spelman students. As these issues directly impact their academic experience and campus life. How do you plan to address these challenges and ensure that students have safe and convenient living and commuting options?

Answer: We are unraveling our issue around parking and housing as we speak. So two things to mention for sure is Morehouse James and Abbey are on schedule to be completed this summer. When the students come back, the construction is down, which creates more parking spaces. That’s a great thing. It also brings more housing back.

In addition to that, we definitely have been controlling the number of full-time new students, and our enrollment management team has put together a predictive analytic tool that's helping us understand how students should come in, and so we’ve capped the number of students this year. If we cap the number of students at 635 students – we, in the past, have let in as high as over 700 students, and we know that we're about to graduate the largest graduating class – I think it’s 700 graduates this year. That alone is going to take that number down, because that class graduates, and it balances out, so it gives us an improvement in housing and an improvement in parking. Then we have a longer-term blueprint plan that looks at what do we do in our next build outs on the campus.

Navigating the Political Climate and Financial Challenges

Question: Recent policy challenges under the current presidential administration have sparked concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion, the future of financial aid and support for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. How does Spelman plan to navigate these changes and what steps are being taken to ensure that students continue to have equitable access to financial resources and educational opportunities despite these challenges?

Answer: Well, these are significant challenges. Earlier today, we had a State of the College address with the broader community here at Spelman. One of the things we talked about was, first of all, when the news was first published about the executive orders that week around the 20th of January, this team got together and we looked at, first of all, let's understand where we are, where are our dollars, and where do we have exposure. That's not always an easy task, because imagine that we have research projects going in an area that's federally funded and some things are not. We quickly got our handle on what the impact could be, and then we understood what will happen this year and what can happen next year. We are putting together contingency plans. I think the biggest issue we have to watch are things like, if we get any news on Pell Grants. Those kinds of things are very impactful to a community like ours.

In that instance, that has made us accelerate our relationships with our donors. We're building those contingency plans saying we know we spend about X on our Pell-eligible student; and understand when we say that, you know, we have to worry about the families that go home and their parents are less employed than they had been because there is unintended impact to this. We can't really just look at absolute numbers. We have to build a little bit more in the pot because we're not quite sure how many arms this thing is going to have. We're in the process of doing that right now.

We shared some really good data with our Board of Trustees. They gave us feedback on the support that they're behind us on this 100%. That's a good thing, and it's a matter of us monitoring what's going on. The bigger issue, too, is this DE&I space and how people react to it. Some of the feedback we've gotten as we've been out in the world and around the country, just talking about how people are feeling about donating to an HBCU. And I'll tell you, there's still a very good spirit out there. They may not want their name broadly on a big building, but that's okay. We don't have very many of those to offer anyway, but we have some other really important work to do. We are diving deep into our relationships and building contingency plans because we are going to keep Spelman Strong.

Strengthening Spelman’s Relationship with the West End

Question: Speak more about Spelman’s relationship with the West End and how best we can continue to cultivate and foster strong ties. Spelman has always been a vital part of West End Atlanta. What strategies do you have to build strong relationships with local stakeholders and enhance community engagement to benefit both Spelman and the surrounding neighborhood.

Answer: There are a couple of things that really put Spelman in the center of this discussion. I will tell you we have strong relationships with both our local senators, both Senator Warnock and Senator Ossoff. Secondly, our conversations with the other AU Center presidents. The way that AUC presidents interact with each other is every two years, one of the college presidents presides over all the AU Center presidents. This year, it's us. We can really dive into this question about our total community. We scheduled to meet with the new owners of the West End property. It should have been this week, but there was a weather delay coming in. The meeting was tomorrow, but we’re going to be meeting directly with them and making sure that they understand what we want in this community.

The last thing I'll tell you is that we need to build a secure environment for our students in this geography. As we look at putting new commerce in the area, we want to make sure that it enhances the environment from safety, security, accessibility, what you want in the area, and what it means for us. We need space outside this campus too. Spelman is an enclosed environment versus some of the other schools, so wouldn’t it be great that they put something that enhances our housing in that area. There's still time to influence, and we're making sure our voices are heard – for sure.

We have a new title on this campus, our government relations person, Fatimot Ladipo, and she has strong relationships here. What I learned today is that her father – she’s a native Atlantan, and her father owned businesses in this area. When she drives around, she's very, almost emotional about it. She is the one who is coordinating with Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock’s office for us. We have a good champion on our team.

Building and Maintaining Relationships with Students, Faculty and Staff

Question: How do you intend on building and maintaining relationships with those you lead – both students, faculty and staff.

Answer: We recently completed some research to think about how students are feeling about being on campus and how our staff, including faculty, is responding and our students have told us – you all have told us – that you want more access and exposure. When we think about that, our staff and faculty are pretty stretched in a lot of ways, but they want to spend more time. That's their best time spent either in the classroom or with you after class hours. We're looking at ways to relieve some of these positions of all the responsibilities. For example, we’ve added a new role for event management, because that was spread across everyone on the campus when an event occurs.

We’re adding a vice president of HR and culture. That's important because when it comes to hiring, we do this by maybe not being as structured as we could be. Are there other positions that we could be thinking about? We're bringing in a new HR role that will report to the President's Office to make sure our structure is effective, so that our staff can do the real work that they want to do. It's things like that we find very important. That’s Spelman’s secret sauce. This is a living learning environment, and this is how we differentiate ourselves. Because if you go to a larger institution, sometimes you'll never see your professor. You'll never see the staff. You'll never see the executive team. Spelman is different in that way. When we have that relationship, it makes all the difference in the world.

Some of the learnings we had from the student listening sessions is that you told us that you're mission driven, and it is so important to you to be for and by Black women. So we're thinking about that, because in order to deliver upon that, that means we have to look at the curriculum to make sure that it's great. We have to look at building your life skills, and those life skills come from what you just asked about – ‘how do you have a relationship with the staff?’ We want to make sure we're bringing you along in a way that no other institution can do. That is an important question. It's one that we were concentrating on, and it's a part of who we are.

Supporting Student Voices and Self-Expression

Question: Under previous administrations at Spelman College, students have had a myriad of experiences of suppression from staff, administration, and public safety when trying to express dissatisfaction with campus operations through peaceful protest. Do you plan to continue to allow this culture to exist during your time with us? What relationship can opinionated, expressive, and engaged students expect to have with the President’s Office, especially in situations where the interests of students come into conflict with those of the Board of Trustees?

Answer: I think it’s important that we strike a balance between safety and self-expression. We want our students to use their voices. We’re even contemplating right now where Spelman’s voice is at this particular time that we’re in. We’re thinking about that right now. When are we going to show up, and how are we going to show up? We want to hear your voice, and we want to see you be a leader in change. If you ever feel like you’re not getting the right response – we’re also quite paternal sometimes too and we say, “Oh, be safe! Or “Do this a certain way.” It’s never intended to dampen your voice or views or push you in one way or another. We have learned that we have Republican women on this campus. We can benefit from the diversity within our diversity. There’s probably the question of how to do this in a way where you feel freedom and support, and this should be the environment in which you can do it. Hold us accountable so that we allow you to be yourself.

Making Spelman College More Financially Accessible

Question: How do you plan to make Spelman more financially accessible?

Answer: The way our scholarship process works is as follows: (Answering the question of) How much of the endowment do we use toward scholarships? We’re looking at taking that up this year to provide more scholarships. We’re managing our costs very well because we don’t turn over a lot of the cost to the College; we absorb it because we’re watching that very carefully. Every time we talk to a donor, we solicit in the space of a scholarship first and everything else second. Donors, that’s really all they want to talk about for the majority of their conversations. “Give me a list of students who are in a need-based environment and what can we do for them.” We’re trying to improve the amount of scholarships, making sure we’re managing the draw from the endowment on behalf of scholarships, and keeping our costs in line so we don’t have to pass that on to you (the students).

Sustainability and Environmental Justice at Spelman

Question: How does Spelman College plan to counter the effects of the U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations climate change agreement under President Trump – particularly in maintaining sustainability on the campus and in the West End and promoting environmental justice?

Answer: This position on sustainability in this country is going counterproductive to where any of us are happy. I don’t know what’s next. I’m a bit surprised by some of the changes that are being made in sustainability, but health care that comes from a sustainable environment as well. The best I can say is that I share your concern. I don’t know enough about it yet. It’s concerning that we would ever put something that important on the back burner.

Motivational Drivers as Spelman College President

Question: What motivates you to be the best as Spelman College president? What motivates you to lead in the best way?

Answer: I am motivated by the possibilities of what our students can do for the future of this country. That sounds lofty and big, but I’ve been in environments where I’ve seen women of color change the room. I’ve been in rooms where they weren’t present, and there was no success. So I get motivated by every graduation I attend and see 400 to 600 or 700 Black women graduating when I know their life could have been different. I get motivated and think, “Wow!’ What’s next? They got a platform and here we go!” I am keenly committed to seeing us show up in unusual places where we’re not expected because we can. Those places absolutely need our voice, energy, our nurturing and everything else we bring to a room.

Question: How has your experience in the world of business, management and finance have allowed you to more effectively and more creatively lead in your world in academia?

Answer: I didn’t think I could do well in academia because the environments are different. In the corporate setting, I would be responsible for setting strategy and vision, creating a culture and driving accountability. Driving accountability is a little bit different in academia because it’s based on research in academia. It’s a different environment. In terms of what I’ve done in my experiences is vision and strategy setting. I’m really a proponent of building culture. Culture trumps strategy any day of the week. If you get people mobilizing behind you, it’s endless what you’re capable of doing it. Building a culture that can trump your strategic plan is when you know as a leader that you know how to move a business forward. That’s when you know you’ve turned the corner. You can hit a monthly number, you can hire a few people, but you have to look back in the rear view mirror and look ahead and say, “What have I built?” I’ve done that, and what I always say, it was my team, it was the culture, it was the environment and then we delivered the numbers.

Ensuring Safety and Support for Immigrants at Spelman

Question: Given the current climate surrounding immigration policies, how do you plan to ensure Spelman College continues to be a safe and supportive environment for all individuals?

Answer: We’re doing work around values right now. When you talk about the environment, there are a few characteristics we want to develop at the College: one is communication, studying through collaboration, and focusing on innovation. We believe in creativity and what it can bring together.

Scaling Support Systems for Growth

Question: How does the administration plan to scale essential support systems such as student accounts, the registrar and maintenance to accommodate growth and our needs?

Answer: I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t drilled down far on student fees and accounts. Overall, higher education has gotten expensive. For our communities and people who look like us, we don’t want the cost of education to hamper their ability to be in environments like what you’re experiencing. There’s probably some work we can do to say how much is required. One of the things we’re thinking about right now at instruction like ours, over 140 years old, there are probably some things that we haven’t stopped doing. A good start-stop-and-continue exercise is due right now so we can streamline our spending and understand what’s important to spend. Therefore, it will help us to look at costs. That’s the work that we’re doing right now. It’s important because of what’s changing because of this administration.

Question: How will those services support a growing population?

Answer: We are looking at a few instances where we think we can improve in those areas. We’re seeing more demand for counseling services. When we talk about growth, you might see us talk less about growing in the number of students but growing in our academic depth. We don’t have the infrastructure to accommodate another 100 students. Part of this is controlling and impacting what you can. We are looking at things that are inefficient on campus and trying to eliminate them. We’re trying to optimize the things we know you need.

Integrating AI into Spelman's Campus

Question: How do you plan to integrate artificial intelligence?

Answer: The work we’re doing right now on artificial intelligence is incorporating AI in academics. Just a few examples – I was a chemistry major when I was here. Our economics major is really strong; but we don’t allow our data to math on our data. Combining what we’re learning in economics with what we’re learning in cosmetic chemistry – those kinds of things. We need to start bringing in more computational science on this campus. If you choose the corporate route or if you don’t, you’re going to have to understand how to manage big data and bring big data tables together and I don’t mean in Excel. The most complex problems require you to combine uncustomary data and computation. We’re not doing enough on campus. We’re bringing it into the classroom in the form of coursework.

We also have to create an AI policy on the campus. We have a lot of companies that want a lot of data on our students and our learning outcomes. We need to put together a policy on what stays here and what goes out and how do we control the data flow – in and out. We got some work to do on our own. As you can imagine, you have to really clean up your own data before you can start making it math together. We have to do some data cleaning and that’s timely. We’ve asked the technology team to create a five-year plan for a new tech stack here at the College. That will enable the process towards a better AI position.

Taking Advantage of Career Services at Spelman

Question: What resources are available for career preparation?

Answer: Make sure that you are taking full advantage of the resources that exist on campus. Our Career Planning and Development Office has a suite of services, from mock interviews to resume preparation. They have companies that come in and volunteer to work with you on interview prep etiquette when you're out working with hiring individuals.

There was a career and college fair today in the Wellness Center. I hope that all of you attended that, but I'm just making sure that you are in tune. I know you all get inundated with information but as you hear about these things, both with career planning and in some other areas, there are a lot of other areas of health careers, for example, that provide opportunities to help you prepare for when you're ready for your next internship or your first career opportunity right out of college. Seek out some additional support from those resources. The office is always open, and there's always someone there to assist you.

Question: How do you plan to improve how we do research on this campus? There are a number of departments that don’t necessarily require research or don’t invest in research and as a student planning to apply for graduate school, it could be helpful.

Answer: One of the concerns we have right now is that some of these potential threats of cuts really hit right at research – the research that we do or the funding for the research that we do. That is a concern. One of the things we’ve been thinking about is physical space for better research. I think there are so many partnerships we can have in the Atlanta area to have a better physical environment. Secondly, we want to be known for excellence in certain categories. Research is important to us, so it will be a priority for us as we go forward as one of the legs that keep Spelman strong. We don’t want to step away from research. We’ll try our very best if any research dollars are cut, we’re going to try to replace them as best we can.

Question: Do you have any specific moments in your career when you had to take risks or step into something not knowing the outcome. If so, what did you tell yourself to take that risk, and how did it pay off?

Answer: I’ve taken risks in my career. One of the things that always stayed in the back of my mind is – if I wasn’t successful, I had lived a pretty conservative life so I would say if I got fired, I knew how to live off less so I would be good. That fueled me because I knew quite honestly, I wasn’t overextended. You can call me the bag lady. I always think the next day; I’m going to be broke. That was my mindset. It also fueled me because risk is where the greatest learning comes from. When I was in positions where I wasn’t taking risks, I felt really weird. It felt uncomfortable for me because I felt I wasn’t in the decision set of where things were happening. Risk is a big part.

Running businesses and companies is about constant trade off every day because you’re not going to have all the resources and you’re not going to have all the time. You’re always volleying between the two of those – I can do something fast and get something fixed; but then I can fix it for the long haul and grow something. Those are daily tradeoffs, so after a while, my DNA became built on taking risks. I would monitor the risk so that’s why mostly in my career you’ll see – I was a chemistry major here – I am data driven. That data gives you a good idea of the number of risks you’re taking. I have to tell you I probably take calculated risks overtime. At first, I made some dumb mistakes because I was like “I just want the big project,” and I’d jump in, and I didn’t know what I was doing. That’s a hard learning lesson, but you do that, and you rebound, and you realize you have to do a little more work.

Addressing Student Concerns: Mental Health and Safety

Question: How do you plan to lead the administration around pressing student concerns about mental health, safety and overall wellbeing, especially considering the challenges they are facing in today’s environment?

Answer: That’s a space I’m concerned about – If I go outside the gates of Spelman and tell you what I envision when I see young hires into the companies I’ve worked for – I can see the lack of focus on mental health. We used to have this saying in the corporate environment, “Bring your whole self to work.” That comes with its challenges. Now, people need to be in environments where their whole self isn’t criticized, and they feel confident. That’s a little bit different than bringing your whole self and just dropping it onto the countertop of the company. Companies have to deal with it. I don’t see that the companies are equipped, and I don’t see that some of our new hires have self-awareness about what they need from a mental health standpoint. Then, they weren’t matching well with the companies. You get into a company and maybe they run and a totally different pace than maybe you can bring yourself into.

When I say that Spelman is a living learning environment. Life skills are equally as important as academics. I really want that to be what Spelman stands for – that’s our unique difference at Spelman. We can call it mental health, we can get technical about those resources, but we’re also about building those techniques that cause us all – when we get in an anxious situation, how do you self-moderate. How do we teach that more and bring that into who we graduate from this institution. I’m in tune to it. I have a 21-year-old daughter. We talk about who she is and how she manages her day. It’s important. I hope I can understand more. I don’t understand all the resources yet. I need to look into that – I’ll be honest with you. It is something that is top of mind for me to make sure that we’re focusing on that for you.

Addressing Academic Scheduling Conflicts

Question: With many students struggling with scheduling conflicts due to the limited course selections, especially during registration time and those balancing work and extra-curricular commitments, are there plans to increase the number of sections in the high demand courses particularly within the economic department? Is hiring more faculty an option?

Answer: (Provost Pamela Scott-Johnson): We are hiring more faculty and we’re looking at the departments that not only have waitlists and high demand, but we’re also modernizing our scheduling system so it will help us see when and where those high demand courses are, schedule them in a way that spreads them out a little bit in a way that works with your schedules, but also not have a lot of waitlists and look at the capacity of those classes.

We’re in the middle of that process and working with our registrar’s office, department chairs and looking at how many students are in those departments where we might be able to give some breathing room.

Accommodating Students With Health-Related Concerns in Dining Area

Question: Regarding dining accommodations, myself and my peers my deal with hormonal issues that may be easily triggered by the food we intake. I have found that a lot of my peers have gone to their endocrinologists and have seen spikes in their hormonal issues. At Spelman, we are limited to what we offer in dining. Our gluten free options might be high in oil. How can you help students have their input made when it comes to options? How can you help with accommodations such as not being able to have an air fryer or things that make it difficult for us to accommodate our own health issues.

Answer: Our partner, Bon Appétit , constantly asks, “Are the students happy with what they need.” I think we can take this question back and talk to Bon Appétit about that. They are more than willing to make adjustments where they can, so we’ll take that back to them.

Ensuring Spelman Graduates are Competitive in Graduate School and in the Workforce

Question: How will you ensure Spelman graduates are competitive within secondary education and in the workforce.

Answer: In secondary (graduate school) education, academically, you’ll be prepared for that. What I want to be assured of is that you feel competitive. You’re confident, not overconfident, and believe what your capabilities are and who you are when you leave this campus. Change is evitable. I want you to be change agents. I want you to see and understand when it’s coming. I want more than academics when you graduate and leave Spelman. I believe that’s one of the concentrated efforts we are working on.

Question: As a Spelman alumna, who do you appropriate an experience rooted in tradition for incoming students.

Answer: When I was a freshman here, we did the midnight wake up call. I think that’s a fun tradition. We still reflect on it at Reunion. We now have the ability to utilize so many more resources to create these traditions for our young women. I think about the question about alums. I think that’s a missed opportunity of Spelman. I remember stories told to us about how a man would come to visit someone on campus, and just before I came, we were told that you had to be dressed a certain way with white gloves on – not that we wanted to do that; but it was interesting to learn what the standards were at Spelman. Those are the things that tie us together because it’s our own history and not anyone else’s.

I would love more history lessons to understand who Spelman is and how it started. I had to tell the story of Spelman to a donor family. They were amazed to learn that we started in a church. Our history is important and having those stories and that storytelling is really important to keep us together.