ALBION, MI - Joanne “Joey” Miller steps into her role as Albion College Board of Trustees chair after an unprecedented amount of tension between the college and the surrounding Albion community.
The nexus of this tension was former President Mathew Johnson. Some faculty called him a bully. Thousands signed a petition calling his anti-racism more performative than real. A Black Albion NAACP member accused him of verbal harassment at a basketball game.
Read more: ‘Compelled to push back’: Former Albion College president accuses outside group of smearing him
These circumstances make Miller’s vision for the future obvious, she said. Her goals as the first woman to chair the college’s board of trustees are rebuilding trust and uniting the college and city community.
“First, we have to allow people to have a voice and then clearly state what our next steps are,” she said. “And standing behind that is what builds that trust and confidence so that the partnership is strengthened.”
The work to get everyone on the same page precedes the other concerns of any liberal arts college, such as enrollment, academic expansion and more, said Albion College Interim President Joe Calvaruso. That is why he and Miller have spent their first months on the job together reaching out to as many corners of the community as possible.
“I took over Dec. 24, and I think I made between 20 and 30 phone calls,” Calvaruso said. “All I did was listen to people and what they had to say and digesting it all. We then started a listening tour in January where I called and met business leaders. How do we come together? How do we start working together?”
For Miller, a 1975 Albion College graduate and former executive at Canadian automotive supplier Magna International, the listening is crucial.
“The way you first step into this is by being a good listener, and perhaps there were some mistakes in the past at assuring that people have a voice,” she said.
Miller and Calvaruso said they have heard the concerns from the college and city community. The tension of the last several months provides an opportunity to sharpen the college’s values of “preparing our students to be the leaders of tomorrow” through academic excellence, Miller said.
“Albion went through some rough times, and you don’t wish that on anybody,” she said. “But there is a benefit in it. Now we know what we value, because it’s been tested. Nobody has quite that experience unless you’ve walked through the fire.”
Apart from a vision of unity, Albion College does face the same obstacle to success of any liberal arts college -- namely enrollment. In 2019, the college reported its enrollment of full-time students was 1,455. That number increased slightly to 1,506 students, according to 2021-22 National Center for Education Statistics data.
Read more: Michigan college spring enrollment no longer worst in nation after data update
The total cost of attending Albion College as a full-time student next year will be $67,310. It’s tuition remains among the highest in Michigan, but that is not the only way the college plans to deal with soaring national inflation. Calvaruso said multiple building projects approved under Johnson are being reconsidered.
“This is not a period of time where we want to pursue construction because there’s moving parts. It’s a supply chain issue,” Calvaruso said. “So we’ve we’ve backed away from a number of the projects and became much more targeted. What do we need to do? Which projects are student-focused?”
Miller shares that priority of balancing the expansion of academic programs and initiatives and dealing with the reality of rising costs.
“We recognize the fact that higher education is a different decision than it was even five years ago, and especially with what we’ve been going through with COVID and now when you look at inflation, we know that that’s going to affect some decisions,” she said. “It’s also going to affect us in running the school.”
The college must not budge on creating experiential learning opportunities that provide hands-on career training, Miller said. It also needs to celebrate its diversity, she said, adding it has changed vastly from her time at the college in the 1970s.
“Albion’s students and faculty look like the world today,” she said. “We are definitely diversified, and I think that’s really important. We not only look different, but we celebrate and we recognize the power of diversity.”
Read more: Small Michigan colleges are becoming more diverse even as enrollment continues to decline
The most recent NCES data shows Albion College is about 55% white, 17% Black and 13% Latino with single-digit representation in other demographics.
Miller deflects the significance of becoming the college’s first woman to chair the board of trustees, though noting that it is good for women to see other women in these positions. Ultimately, her status as a woman is not why the college appointed her, she said.
“Albion picked me because I’m the right person for the job,” she said. “(The college) doesn’t pigeonhole people like that. ‘How many women do we have here?’ ‘How many men of this race?’ We’ve moved past that. We ask ‘what do you have to offer?’”
Read more from The Jackson Citizen Patriot:
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