When
Dr. Allia L. Carter began her work in June as the new dean of
Bowling Green State University Firelands, the Huron campus was pretty quiet.
“It allowed me the opportunity to get some footing under me before everyone showed up,” Carter says during a recent interview, as the fall semester began to rage. “Here at Firelands, we’re up more than 5 percent in our enrollment, and this is one of the largest incoming classes the school has seen in more than six years, so we’re really excited about that.”
Carter – who grew up in Detroit, one of five children of a pair of World War II veterans – repeatedly uses words such as “access” and “affordability” when she talks about her priorities concerning both higher education in general and what BGSU Firelands can offer students.
Although as a girl she dreamed of being the next Oprah Winfrey and “to get paid for my thoughts” – she has spent a nearly 30-year career in education.
“It’s been great,” she says, “and I love every day of the work I do.”
Working at a public college in Georgia, Carter decided to leave the workforce to pursue a doctorate “with the hope of one day becoming a professor or teaching in a classroom space.” That “pivotal moment” led her, in fact, to BGSU. At the main campus, she worked and went to school full-time for three years.
“And to do that at my age, at (that) time, it was very different,” she says with a laugh. “But it was life-changing for me, and I’ve always held a special place for Bowling Green in my heart.”
Carter returns to the BGSU family after time at Virginia Union University, a small, private, historically Black institution in Richmond, where she most recently served as the executive vice president and chief operating officer. According to
a BGSU news release, the school “experienced significant gains in student enrollment, retention and persistence under her leadership.”
She says she worked closely with the college’s board of trustees to execute its vision.
“I was also responsible for the strategic plan for the institution,” she says. “I guess the best way to summarize the work is I was the leader of leaders; all of the executives (reported) to me, and it was my job to assist them in any way I could to ensure that their goals were fulfilled.”
She wasn’t looking for a change, she says, but people she knew who’d seen the posting for the top position at the campus kept nudging her to pursue it. During the interview process, she says, she believed with the school’s prioritizing of, yes, “access and affordability” – including
its participation with the federally funded TRiO Programs – it would be a good fit for her.
It goes beyond that, of course.
“What was different with this role was it wasn’t exclusively academic,” Carter says. “Many times, when you look at a dean or a chair of a program, you are looking at a person who has worked their way from the classroom to an administrative capacity.
“I knew on this campus what was needed was someone that could run a full, operational campus,” he adds. “I thought that I could bring the skills that they needed both in entrepreneurship – my ability to build with community and corporate partners – and (to grow) enrollment.”
Despite the aforementioned growth of this year’s class, she says enrollment size is an issue for colleges in general.
“The actual number of high school graduates is going down,” she says. “People now are questioning the value of higher education, and it’s important to own the debt that is associated with it.
“At the price point that we offer our community members to get a degree, I think it’s really affordable,” she adds, making note, too, of the campus’
Sandusky Promise grant program.
She speaks highly of the faculty members, some of whom she met with during the interview process. She says they stressed the importance of the campus to the region, a quote that has stuck with her is that BGSU Firelands is “the college of the community.”
Carter touts educational opportunities at BGSU Firelands that include computer networking and cybersecurity.
“We’ve seen a lot of our students get an opportunity to drive into the Ohio workforce, and they’re really part of driving economic development.”
She says she plans to meet more with area business leaders to get a sense of what they are looking for in prospective hires to better shape what the college offers students.
It hasn’t taken long for her to identify an aspect of BGSU Firelands she believes is under-recognized.
“Sometimes people don’t see our institution’s involvement in research,” Carter says. “I have some really strong faculty who’ve been doing a lot of hands-on based research that is practical, I think, to the economy and the community.”
She cited research into human trafficking and water treatment “and how we can make it more sustainable to our agriculture, knowing that the current landscape is built on the back of our farmers.”
Carter settled in Huron – she says she probably could walk to school, er, work if she chose – and enjoys writing and listening to music in her free time.
She doesn’t plan on being a stranger.
“Getting out and meeting people will be important,” she says. I do spend a lot of time dining, and we’ve got some great restaurants here in the Sandusky area.”