Dawn McNair, Provost & VP Academic Affairs, Livingstone College

Invest: spoke with Dawn McNair, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Livingstone College, about strengthening the college’s academic profile, flagship offerings, and student success initiatives. “The goal is larger than preparing students for their first job. We want to prepare graduates who can continue learning, adapting, and leading throughout careers that may span industries and technologies that are still emerging today,” McNair said.

What have been the biggest drivers behind successfully strengthening Livingstone’s academic profile, and what are your priorities for sustaining that momentum?

Livingstone College’s academic progress has been driven by a more intentional focus on quality, accountability, innovation, and student success. We have strengthened our use of assessment to inform decision-making, invested in faculty development, examined the relevance and effectiveness of our academic programs, and created stronger connections between classroom learning and the opportunities students will encounter after graduation.

Another critical component of our academic program is accreditation. Livingstone’s institutional accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges provides a framework for continuous improvement and institutional effectiveness, while specialized accreditation, including IACBE accreditation in Business, affirms the quality of individual academic programs.

Sustaining this will require annual evaluation and expansion of our successes and capitalizing on areas for enhancement. Our priorities include recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty, strengthening academic advising and early intervention, expanding experiential learning and undergraduate research, maintaining rigorous assessment practices, and ensuring that programs evolve in response to changes in the disciplines, technology, and the workforce.

The quality of our educational program should be reflected in what students learn, and how they implement that knowledge.  We are confident that our students will demonstrate this elevated quality in their careers, graduate and professional schools, and in their service and leadership roles.

Which academic programs do you consider Livingstone’s flagship offerings today, and how are they evolving to meet the changing needs of employers and students?

Livingstone has several areas of academic distinction, and our strength is increasingly evident in the accomplishments of our students.

Our STEM programs have experienced significant momentum through undergraduate research, technology-focused learning, faculty mentorship, and participation in national competitions. Livingstone students have earned placements in national hackathon competitions, including competitions associated with Apple, and our undergraduate researchers have earned first-place honors at the Emerging Researchers National Conference for work involving PFAS research and perovskite solar cell technology. Achievements such as these demonstrate that our students are not simply learning scientific concepts in the classroom; they are applying that knowledge to sophisticated research questions and competing successfully on a national stage. For example, our  Biomanufacturing Hub offers free workforce training to prepare students for high-demand biotech careers.

Business and Computer Information Systems are also important areas of growth as we prepare students for a workplace increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud computing, cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, and emerging technologies.

Our Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts programs provide another distinctive opportunity. Students learn in an immersive instructional environment that allows them to connect academic preparation directly to industry practices and expectations.

Simultaneously, we remain deeply committed to Educator Preparation and to the liberal arts, humanities, and creative disciplines that are central to Livingstone’s mission. Across programs, we are increasingly integrating research, certifications, internships, technology, entrepreneurship, and other applied experiences so that graduates leave Livingstone with both a strong academic foundation and demonstrated professional competencies.

How are you balancing a strong liberal arts foundation with growing demand for career-focused programs and emerging technologies?

Liberal Arts and emerging technology can comfortably coexist.  The essence of a Liberal Arts education is to develop critical thinking skills.  Successful technology application is largely dependent on an employee’s ability to think intuitively and deduce solutions.  

Technology will continue to change, and specific technical skills will evolve. What remains essential is the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, solve complex problems, work collaboratively, make ethical decisions, understand different perspectives, and adapt to new circumstances. Those are foundational skills developed through a strong liberal arts education, and they are also among the abilities employers consistently value.

Our responsibility is to connect those enduring competencies more intentionally to contemporary workforce needs. That means ensuring students develop technological fluency while also understanding how to use technology thoughtfully and responsibly. We are incorporating areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data, and other emerging technologies into academic experiences while continuing to emphasize writing, communication, quantitative reasoning, creativity, and critical thinking across disciplines.

We are also expanding opportunities for students to earn industry-recognized credentials, participate in internships, engage in undergraduate research, and solve real-world problems.

The goal is larger than preparing students for their first job. We want to prepare graduates who can continue learning, adapting, and leading throughout careers that may span industries and technologies that are still emerging today.

What student success initiatives are having the greatest impact on retention, graduation rates, and post-graduate opportunities?

Student success begins with recognizing that persistence, graduation, and career preparation are interconnected. We have strengthened early-alert and intervention practices so that faculty and staff can identify academic, attendance, or engagement concerns earlier and connect students with support before those challenges become barriers to completion.

Moreover, retention is also strengthened when students understand the purpose of their education and can see a pathway from the classroom to their future. That is why we are increasingly connecting academic success with career preparation, mentoring, internships, certifications, entrepreneurship, and other high-impact experiences.

Opportunities such as InternXL are particularly important because they provide students with access to highly competitive professional experiences and networks. Internships and similar programs give students the opportunity to apply what they have learned, develop professional confidence, build relationships with employers, and better understand the expectations of the workplace.

Undergraduate research, professional certifications, entrepreneurship experiences, and faculty mentoring also strengthen that connection between academic preparation and post-graduate opportunity.

Our long-term goal is to create a seamless student-success ecosystem in which advising, early intervention, academic support, career preparation, experiential learning, and mentoring are not isolated initiatives. They should work together from the moment a student enters Livingstone through graduation and into employment, graduate school, or professional study.

Looking ahead, what opportunities do you see to further elevate Livingstone’s academic reputation across North Carolina and among HBCUs nationally?

Livingstone is poised to become even more intentional about identifying the areas in which we can lead and investing strategically in those areas.  For a smaller institution, distinction does not come from attempting to be everything to everyone. It comes from identifying areas where our mission, faculty expertise, academic programs, partnerships, facilities, and student talent intersect, building recognizable excellence around them.

I see significant opportunities to expand our visibility in STEM and undergraduate research, technology, business and entrepreneurship, hospitality and culinary arts, educator preparation, and interdisciplinary programs that respond to workforce and community needs. We can also strengthen transfer pathways, employer partnerships, industry certifications, graduate and professional-school pipelines, and collaborations with other colleges and universities.

Equally important is our ability to tell the Livingstone academic story more effectively. Academic reputation is built not only by what an institution says about itself, but by what it can demonstrate through student achievement, faculty scholarship, external partnerships, accreditation, research, graduate-school placement, career outcomes, and measurable improvements in student success.

The next opportunity for Livingstone is to take the excellence already occurring across the institution, scale it where appropriate, document its impact, and make it more visible regionally and nationally.

Ultimately, I want Livingstone College to be recognized as an institution where students receive the personal attention and sense of community associated with a smaller college, while providing access to the academic rigor, research, technology, experiential learning, and professional opportunities needed to compete anywhere. This combination is our strategic approach to ensure Livingstone College is a next-level performer in all of higher education.