Dr. Alexis Gaston never planned a career in higher education. As an undergraduate, she changed her major three times and, by her own account, was mostly focused on finishing.
"Academics have never been an issue for me," she said. "But I never knew what I wanted to do."
Today, Gaston is a faculty member deeply involved in assessment and accreditation at Tennessee State University, where she works closely with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness on assessment credentials for the College of Health Sciences. She also serves as a liaison for the university's Quality Enhancement Plan, a central component of the regional accreditation process.
Her path to that work was anything but linear, and she points to the Higher Education Leadership Foundation (H.E.L.F.) as a turning point in how she understands leadership at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
A Military Upbringing and an Unexpected Calling
Gaston describes herself as a military brat. Her father retired at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and she settled in the nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, area, where she earned her undergraduate degree from Austin Peay State University.
After college, a graduate assistantship led her to pursue a master's degree in public health. At the time, she imagined a future at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or perhaps in health policy, with law school as a possible next step.
Then an opening in enrollment management appeared at her institution while she was still a student.
"A position kind of fell open for me in enrollment management," she said, "and then I just grew to love it."
She began her career at a predominantly white institution before deciding she wanted something different. She returned to school to earn her doctorate and landed at Tennessee State, first on the administrative side of enrollment. During her doctoral studies, she discovered a passion for teaching and scholarship and chose the faculty route, which eventually led to her current focus on assessment and institutional effectiveness.
Finding H.E.L.F.
Gaston learned about H.E.L.F. from a mentor who had participated in the program before the pandemic. When she shared her ambition to grow in higher education, her mentor recommended she apply.
"I'm on the faculty side, and sometimes you're siloed to your area," she said. H.E.L.F. offered a way to connect with colleagues well beyond her own corner of the academy.
She joined the Lambda Mu cohort, the first group to convene in person after COVID-19 restrictions began to ease. For Gaston, who had spent her career at public institutions, the experience opened a window onto how private colleges and universities operate.
Her cohort brought together an array of professionals: some aspiring to presidencies, others rooted in student affairs, enrollment, and academic administration. That mix, she said, fueled some of the most valuable conversations of the program.
"Although we're at varying institutions, we talked about the challenges and the opportunities to build spaces that work for students," she said. "How can faculty connect with enrollment management? How can one area connect with another? It opened up those ideas so you could take them back to your own institution and explore those practices."
Affirming the HBCU Mission
Because she did not attend an HBCU, Gaston said H.E.L.F. carries particular personal meaning. Having worked in enrollment management at both a predominantly white institution and an HBCU, she noticed differences in how external partners treated her depending on where she worked. Those disparities often went unspoken, she said, but H.E.L.F. put words to them.
"It reaffirmed the importance of HBCUs, how we have to take care of our own," she said. "Sometimes we don't always have the resources, but if we come together in a consortium such as H.E.L.F., we can create spaces to ensure that we are just as ready and just as prepared as our counterparts."
She was quick to note that chronic underfunding has not dimmed the achievements of these institutions.
"Even though HBCUs oftentimes don't have all the resources, the human capital, the funding, the support, when you come into those spaces, we are still shining with what we have," Gaston said, "and achieving even more with less."
As H.E.L.F. marks its 10th anniversary, Gaston said what distinguishes the program from others she has completed is what happens after graduation.
Many leadership programs, she observed, end with a certificate and little else. Follow-up is limited, and alumni are left to wonder what comes next.
"With H.E.L.F., there is a continuum," she said. "If you want mentorship, if you want sponsorship, if you want those opportunities to grow, there are still spaces to do that."
