Cheryl Nixon’s path to higher education started when she was a child who would read late into the night, huddled underneath the covers of her bed with a flashlight and a favorite book.
That early love of reading gradually evolved into a love of education. She was a professor of English for 17 years at the University of Massachusetts Boston before moving into administration there and later at Fort Lewis College, a former Indian boarding school in Durango, Col., that has grown into the most diverse public liberal arts college in the nation. As her career progressed, Nixon says she discovered the importance of helping youth who thought higher education wasn’t for them because of either academic or financial shortcomings.
“I learned very quickly that my joy of teaching was best to serve students that really needed support, really needed help, really needed just some confidence,” says Nixon. “We can do better for these students. We can open up the doors of education wide and provide opportunities to all students.”
Now Nixon is the new president of Berea College, the tuition-free, liberal arts school that serves about 1,500 students in Madison County. She is the college’s tenth president and the first woman to serve in the capacity. Nixon says she wants to renew the school’s commitments to racial and gender equality as well as to serving low-income students. In the process, she says she will heed the advice of her predecessor, former Berea President Lyle Roelofs, who told her that the school’s presidents don’t change Berea as much as the college changes its presidents.
“I really take that to heart that what I’m there to do is to really listen to what Berea needs, listen to what Berea wants, what is the next chapter that we’ll build together,” says Nixon.
Continuing a Tradition of Diversity and Tuition-Free Education
At a time when postsecondary education is struggling with enrollments, tuition costs, and diversity issues, Nixon says Berea’s original vision and values position it well to meet these challenges. Founded in 1855 by minister and abolitionist John G. Fee, Berea College was the first school in the south to allow men and women of any race to study together.
But that idea wasn’t always popular in antebellum Kentucky. For five years, Fee and dozens of other families associated with the college had to live in exile in Ohio to avoid violence directed at them and the school. Berea reopened after the Civil War and remained integrated until a 1904 state law forced the school to segregate. It was not until 1950 that Black and white students would once again be allowed to study together in Berea classrooms, fulfilling Fee’s original vision.
“That strength of spirit that our founder had, that really permeates Berea, and I would love us to help all higher ed in Kentucky but even nationally say, ‘Let’s find that strength and those kinds of inspirational values together,’” says Nixon. “Higher ed needs to remember we need to be inspirational, we need to say these values are difficult but they are also inspiring, they can be affirming, they can be aspirational.”
Around the country, diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have come under fire in today’s partisan political environment. A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling also ended affirmative action in college admissions. Nixon says diversity is a core value at Berea and is a critical factor in all of higher education. She argues that diversity should be approached holistically to consider everything from a student’s race and ethnicity, to socioeconomic status to political views, to their skills and talents. She contends colleges and universities as well as society as a whole will be stronger for embracing diversity.
“That’s where we will find our strength is if everyone can bring their talents to the table,” says Nixon.
Berea’s tuition-free promise to all its students also makes the school unique in higher education. Nixon says ever-increasing tuitions and other fees are pricing some students out of a college degree and forcing others to take out large loans that will burden them for decades. She says other postsecondary institutions must figure out a way to keep the college experience possible for all.
“Berea has a solution to that and I wish more of higher ed had that same solution,” Nixon says.
Another challenge for schools across the country is to help students fully recover from the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, whether that’s learning loss that stemmed from virtual instruction or mental health problems exacerbated by pandemic isolation. Nixon says COVID has left everyone feeling weary, and that Berea must provide more wrap-around services for its students that create a caring, loving educational experience.
Finding Joy and Taking Action
During her first weeks on the job, Nixon has embarked on what she calls a listening, learning, and community-building tour to hear what’s on the minds of Berea students, faculty, and staff. She says the best way to serve the college is to work side by side with those who attend the school or are employed there.
Nixon says Berea students, all of whom are required to work 10 hours a week at a campus job, have encouraged her to join them at some of those tasks, whether that’s in the school library, dining hall, or farm operation. She says some students also want to enhance the beauty and tranquility of the Berea campus by providing places where anyone can take a mental health break.
“Isn’t that a great idea?” says Nixon. “If we’re talking about having a special community, let’s create some nice spaces that capture the feel.”
While serving as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Fort Lewis College, Nixon launched a nursing program designed to help expand health care options in rural southwestern Colorado. Since Berea already has a nursing program, Nixon says wants to learn about other specific needs in central Appalachia and then see how the college can help address them.
“Good leadership is taking ideas and moving them into action, and figuring out what’s the right action that we can put behind those needs,” she says.
As she settles into the unique rhythms of a small southern town and the hectic life of a college president, Nixon says she also wants to make time for campus celebrations. She says it’s important for Berea and its students to rediscover joy after the tribulations of the past three years. And when the celebrating is done, she says she will pivot to strategic planning that sets a course for the school’s future and the regional needs it will address.
“I want to discover what those things are together and have some fun while we’re doing it,” says Nixon.
