Kevin Rolle is the Executive Vice President and COO of Alabama A&M University. For Kevin Rolle Alabama’s A&M University was the only place he ever wanted to work. It is a land-grant, public, historically black university in Huntsville’s Normal neighborhood. The school, also known as AAMU, is also a Thurgood Marshall College Fund member-school and it has received full accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
AAMU was originally founded as a normal school in 1870, and it was renamed to AAMU in 1969. The Normal Hill College District, also known as the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University Historic District, is home to 28 different buildings. Four of its structures are U.S. National Register of Historic Places listed.
In 1875, an act of Alabama State Legislature established the school. The state appropriation was increased in 1878, making it $2,000, at which point the school renamed itself to State Normal and Industrial School. This was changed to the State Normal and Industrial School of Huntsville in 1885. Five years later, the site the school was on was named Normal, Al, and a post office was also established. The following year, the school received Land Grant College designation, which happened under the Morrill Act of 1890.
It was renamed again to the State Agricultural and Mechanical Institute for Negroes in 1896, a name it kept until 1919. Then, it was renamed the State Agricultural and Mechanical Institute for Negroes. It was renamed for a final time in 1948, when it became Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College, or AAMU.
It received SACS accreditation for the first time in 1963. Then, in June 1969, AAMU officially took on its current name. Always at the heart of innovation, the school constructed the West Campus Complex in the new millennium. The Louis Crews Stadium was also erected, seating 21,000 people. And the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) was renovated and had athletic programs moved to it, something Rolle has taken a lot of pride in.
In 2002, AAMU constructed its School of Engineering and Technology building, which also enabled them to offer a PhD in Reading and Literacy. On June 18, 2009, Andrew Hugine was appointed 11th president of the school by the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees ls approved out of state scholarships in 2015, and the first students on these scholarships came to the university in the Fall 2016 semester, having now completed their first year. Scholarships are accepted if students meet a number of academic qualifications.
Under Rolle’s guidance, AAMU has gone from strength to strength. Kevin Rolle himself is proud of the heritage of the school and of Alabama as a whole, particularly in terms of the civil rights movement. Although Alabama is known for its breaches of human rights against Black populations in particular, it has also always stood strong and continued on regardless, demanding rights and equal access. This is also true for the suffrage movement.