Alverno College President Christy Brown: ‘Alverno College is still a very well-kept secret, and we need for people not only in our community but outside of our community to understand what a jewel it is.’

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Alverno College President Christy Brown

Alverno College President Christy Brown

In the last few years, there have been rumblings about devaluing traditional college education because not enough courses are devoted to training students for practical jobs upon graduation. In fact, about half of current college grads work jobs they could do without a college education. 

Which brings me to Alverno College located on Milwaukee’ south side within a neighborhood of middle-class houses. The Alverno curriculum is engineered toward preparing students for lucrative jobs.

The Alverno College website has a message for applicants—"Nearly 90% of Alverno graduates are employed in areas related to their major and career goals. The learning you do in the classroom will be applied to the work you do everyday. Beyond the classroom, you'll intern for at least one semester, giving you a valuable opportunity to build your resume while getting additional hands-on experience. These internships lead to networking opportunities and in many cases employment right out of college.”

To advance that paradigm, Alverno hired Christy Brown 18 months ago. Brown, a veteran executive of education administration, trimmed the staff and the number of majors and settled into turning the Alverno philosophy into daily practice.

I met Brown in her second floor campus office beneath the steeple with the golden cross. Alverno is a Catholic Franciscan college. Right away, I noticed that staff members called her, “Christy.” I found that endearing. I also found her endearing.

Tell me about your background, your childhood, parents, neighborhoods, and schooling. What were you like as a young person?

I was very quiet as a youngster. Not sure why, maybe because I was a Black girl. I grew up on the north side on 19th and Nash near Rufus King High School. Through the 5th grade, I went to a Lutheran School, then later to Hartford Avenue School, which was awesome, and to Rufus King for my high school years. I was involved in many activities including sports and student government. 

Rufus King was a really good public school in the 1980s, and it still is.

Yes, and what I loved about Rufus King is that it was integrated and diverse back then. Students came from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, but we felt we were a family. 

What did your parents do for work?

My dad was an Air Force veteran, and he took over my grandfather’s Northtown Rubbish Removal business, which my grandfather had started in 1941. Clients were African American businesses. My mom was an Avon lady, and I sold a lot of Avon products, which brought me out of my quiet shell. Later, she was a secretary at a law firm.

When you were in high school, did you have a career in mind?

Early on, I thought I would become a lawyer. 

And then you went on to Stanford University in California.

Interesting how that happened. When I was 10 years old, my family drove to California—dad, mom, my three siblings and my grandparents. I found I loved California. In high school, Stanford University came to Rufus King for recruiting. I had a good academic record, I applied, and I got a scholarship. I started out in electrical engineering but soon realized it wasn’t for me. I ended up majoring in psychology.

What do you find interesting about psychology?

People. I love people, and what motivates them, why people do the things they do. Is their behavior innate or learned?

After graduating from Stanford, what career choices did you make? What were your first jobs? 

I stayed for a year at Stanford and worked in the financial aid office. That experience taught me I liked higher education as a profession.

Then, as I recall, your grandmother wanted you to come back to Milwaukee.

She did, and so I came back. For a while, I lived at home and did odd jobs, sold Golden Books, did telemarketing. Then, I worked at Pathfinders with teen mothers, but I was still too young and inexperienced to help them very much. I ended up working full time in admissions at UWM. 

You later went on to the Duke University Law School. You even delivered the commencement address. Why did you choose the legal field?

At Duke Law School, I earned a master’s degree in humanities and also a law degree. I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I did a seminar topic on Lloyd Barbee, the Milwaukee civil rights lawyer and politician. I admired Martin Luther King for his civil rights activism. 

After you earned your law degree, you came back to Milwaukee and took a job as a lawyer for a local law firm, Michael Best & Friedrich.

I worked there for three years. Their lawyers were active in the community, helping nonprofits and people with needs. My next job was at Lutheran Social Services. Later, I moved on to be the 

executive vice president and general counsel at Milwaukee Area Technical College. After that, I became vice chancellor for finance and administrative affairs at UWM. Over time, I listened to the people around me who had good ideas. If you’re a good boss, you say okay, let’s do it. In 2012, I joined the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast as CEO with a mandate to raise the visibility of the organization. Loved that work. Stayed there for over ten years until I took this job in July 2023.

Alverno is a Catholic women’s college, although a few men do attend. 

Twenty percent of our student population are men, but most enrolled in our graduate programs. 

You have been the Alverno College President for over a year and a half. Why did you take this job?

Because it fit with my personal mission. I am interested in helping people improve the quality of their lives. I have a special interest in women, people of color, and any group that is marginalized such as low-income groups. I think that is Alverno’s mission as well. We have a program called “The Abilities,” in other words, abilities students need to demonstrate. There are eight different abilities—show competency, demonstrate communication skills, have social interaction, be productive with others, problem solve, show skills at analyzing, have good values and show strong decision making.

And “The Abilities” program is all part of the courses your students take, their educational interactions? 

They are. The students like this program. They don’t get grades here at Alverno. They get feedback. If they give a report or write a paper, the feedback will be about improvement ideas. We do this because this process is how performance evaluations are treated in the work world.

I found this quotation from you: “I feel like on some level, Alverno is still a very well-kept secret and we need for people not only in our community but outside of our community to understand what a jewel it is.” Can you elaborate?

There are two levels. One level is not that many people know about us because we are on the south side. The second level is that they don’t know the impact we have on students, how transformational Alverno can be. Seventy percent of our students are first generation, their parents not having gone to college. Sixty-eight percent have families on the lower economic scale. That is life changing for the students and their families. Because Alverno is such jewel, I try to make sure everyone knows that the college is located here in Milwaukee. That means more visibility and being active in the community. Employers have told me that some of the best nurses come from Alverno and also some of the best teachers.

Are a lot of your students of adult age, say, older than 25 or so?

Our undergrads are 17 to 27. Our average age is probably 24. A lot of our students have jobs that extends their college lives. Our graduate students are older, and we have a doctoral education program that is online. You can earn your degree online. Anyway, we are located in Milwaukee, we are thriving, and we have a great environment for learning. Our recruiting style is more personalized than other colleges.

Why do you think women choose Alverno College for their college education? 

I think it’s because of our college environment—customized, personal, friendly. Alverno follows a continuum of building women’s leadership and helping women and girls find their voices.”

What do most students major in or what fields do they choose as graduate students?

Nursing is first, 43%, then Education, 27%—that includes our undergraduate programs. There are even more education students in our graduate programs.

The healthcare field is exploding, many opportunities for jobs. Nurses are needed. On another note, I believe the majority of your students are minority, especially Hispanic. In terms of ethnicity, what is the breakdown?

For the entire student body, 34% white. 29% are Hispanic, 20% African Americans, 5% Asian, 4%, two or more races, 4%, and 4% are U.S. non-residents. We were the first institution in Wisconsin who have the Federal designation of “Hispanic Serving Institution.”

Here is the challenge for you. According to Federal education data, Alverno College has shed about 28% of its full-time yearly enrollment over the last 10 years and is now down to roughly 1719 students in 2023. Half of those were graduate students. Alverno has also reported deficits the last few years, according to publicly available tax filings. What plans have you been working on to turn those figures around?

We have good plans. Last June, we reorganized our academic portfolio to only concentrate on these five areas: nursing, education, psychology and social Work, business and natural Ssiences. When we closed the other programs, we reduced faculty and staff by 37 employees. This streamlining helped us reduce expenses.

Another hurdle. The number of young people who are college eligible is shrinking, meaning less people are going to college in general.

That’s right. For everyone in the United States, there is a decline in the traditional age of college students. There will be less 18-year-olds from now until 2041. For the Midwest, it is even lower.

What do you think is the future of higher education?

In talking to employers, I find they want people who can do critical thinking—problem solving and analysis. Another thing is communication skills. For instance, at Alverno College, we stress communication ability, thinking on your feet, and being able to speak to a group. For the future, I believe colleges will have to offer more online courses for flexibility. In our case, we now offer a social work major fully online. And I believe colleges will need to offer practical areas. For instance, we offer majors in nursing and education, two growing areas of employment. Our students are all required to have an internship. 

When I left the college, I had this thought—America prides itself on its many-sidedness, a plethora of ethnic groups. Our country is still working on making that work. Alverno College seems to be making that work.