May 2 : Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., Center for Innovation & the Arts

Spelman College announced on Friday, April 29, that it will name the new 84,000-square-foot Center for Innovation & the Arts in honor of Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., the 10th president of the College.

A new “front porch” for Spelman College, the Center for Innovation & the Arts (CI&A), will be home to Spelman’s thriving arts programs in dance, documentary filmmaking, photography, theater and performance, music, the Atlanta University Center Art History and Curatorial Studies Collective, and provide expanded space for the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.

At the hub of the new Center will be the College’s cutting-edge Innovation Lab. Recently named the Arthur M. Blank Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Lab is open to all the College’s liberal arts disciplines.

With an expected completion date of 2024, the fully funded $86 million development will become home to cutting-edge collaborative programs including The Arthur M. Blank Innovation Lab, Center for Black Entrepreneurship, and the Spelman Museum of Art.

To read more about the Center visit Spelman.edu/CIA. To view architectural renderings, visit studiogang.com/project/spelman.

The Spelman College Board of Trustees unanimously voted to appoint Helene Gayle, M.D., MPH its 11th president.

Dr. Gayle currently serves as president and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation's oldest and largest community foundations. Under her leadership, the Trust grew its assets from roughly $2.8 billion to $4.7 billion and adopted a strategic plan aimed at closing the racial and ethnic wealth gap. A public health leader and humanitarian, Dr. Gayle spent nearly a decade as president and CEO of Atlanta-based CARE, one of the largest international humanitarian organizations, with approximately 11,000 staff and poverty fighting programs that reached 82 million people in 2010 in 87 countries. Under Dr. Gayle’s leadership, CARE reinforced its commitment to empowering girls and women to bring lasting change to communities living in poverty.

“Our success for more than a century and a half has been built by an engaged student body and alumnae, committed faculty and staff, and a history of exemplary presidents," said Rosalind G. Brewer, Board Chair of Spelman College. “I’m excited about Dr. Gayle’s appointment and confident that her demonstrated ability to address complex issues in communities of color many of which involve the strength of Black females and her success factors, coupled with her commitment to equity, will further build on Spelman’s legacy and propel the College into the future.”

Dr. Gayle’s presidency will begin on July 1, 2022.

This year, Spelman will offer summer online classes to undergraduate students outside of the AUCC.

To learn more about the program, students are encouraged to join the Summer Success Webinar from 6 - 6:45 p.m., Wednesday, May 25 on Zoom.

All summer classes are taught by faculty trained in online instruction and offered in both synchronous and asynchronous formats.

"I thoroughly enjoyed my summer courses and as student and learner, taking classes over the summer gave me ample time to enjoy and do further research into the material, especially since these courses were outside the requirements for my major," said Laila Hayes, C'2023, chemistry - dual degree engineering, biomedical engineering.

For more information visit the Spelman College Online Undergraduate Program online.

J’Aimeka “Jai” Ferrell, C’2005, was featured in a recent edition of Rolling Out.

According to the publication, "Atlanta continues to lead by example, putting a Black woman in the top leadership position at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Ferrell initially joined the airport seven years ago in marketing and most recently served as assistant general manager of commercial revenue development. She was named the airport’s chief commercial officer in 2020.

A member of the 2019 Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 class, Ferrell earned a Bachelor of Arts in theater studies from Spelman College and a Master of Arts in Communications from Georgia State University.