Alamance Community College welcomed local elected officials, business leaders, community members, and staff at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday afternoon for a newly-christened atrium named in honor of former ACC president Dr. Algie Gatewood, who retired in June 2023.
[Story continues below photos of the event.]
ACC officials said Monday that the area – filled with space and light – had been selected to serve as the Dr. Algie Gatewood because it symbolized his leadership as the community college’s president in many ways. The Dr. Algie Gatewood Atrium is located near the student dining area in the Main Building on ACC’s Graham campus.
More than 100 people attended the ceremony, including Gatewood and family members, as well as state and local elected officials. State senator Amy Galey and state representative Stephen (“Steve”) Ross were among those who recalled the strides that Gatewood had made to forge positive working relationships with them in order to better support the community college during his decade-long tenure as ACC’s president.
“This atrium is not just a physical space on our campus but represents the vision and leadership of Dr. Gatewood who helped shape the college into the thriving institution that we know today,” said Dr. Ken Ingle, who succeeded Gatewood as ACC’s president in February 2024. “As a central gathering place and hub connecting our campus, this atrium has always been important. Now it also becomes a place of gratitude and recognition, officially named for one of ACC’s most transformational leaders.”
Then-president of the Cascade Campus for Portland Community College in Oregon and an Anson County native, Gatewood was hired to lead ACC in July 2013, beating out five other finalists, including the community college’s own executive vice president and four other community college executives.
Within his first year at ACC, Gatewood secured $15 million in funding to build the Advanced Applied Technology Center, which fronts Jimmie Kerr Road at the Graham campus, and later shepherded a $39.6 million bond package to passage in November 2018. The former ACC president and several other speakers pointed out this week that the 2018 bond measure had been the largest ever passed for the community college in the county’s history.
The first black president of ACC, Gatewood’s career in higher education spanned more than 40 years. He served 23 years as an administrator for Anson Community College; seven years as the director of health, education, and welfare at the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority; and nine years as president of the Cascade Campus in Portland prior to becoming ACC’s president.
Gatewood later oversaw the completion of the Biotechnology Center of Excellence and a new student services center on the Graham campus. Other major milestones that ACC achieved under Gatewood’s leadership included:
- Expansions of the student commons cafe area, Emergency Medical Services simulation rooms, Animal Science and Horticulture Building, and expansions in Nursing and Culinary Arts;
- Establishing ACC’s first Early College in partnership with Alamance-Burlington School System, which has enrolled nearly 2,000 students to date;
- Establishing 23 transfer articulation agreements to provide students with a seamless transition from ACC to a four-year institution;
- Adding 19 new curriculum programs;
- Increasing federal, state, and private grants from $150,000 in 2013 to $25 million as of 2020 and overseeing a capital campaign that raised $7.8 million for ACC.
Also nearing completion is the construction of new regional Public Safety Training Center in Green Level, as well as numerous renovations to existing buildings on the Graham campus, which were primarily financed by the $39.6 million bond package the county’s voters approved for ACC in November 2018.
Gatewood also launched a number of programs in hopes of drawing future generations of students to ACC, such as the Medical Bridge: Minority Males in Medicine summer program for middle and high school students in ABSS.
He also helped to establish the Alamance Scholars program in 2021, in partnership with ABSS and Elon University, to provide financial aid, both at ACC and Elon University, for students who plan to become K-12 teachers. In 2022, Gatewood helped to launch the ACC Promise program in 2022 to provide “last-dollar scholarships” to students needing financial assistance to complete their education.
Perhaps most notable were the partnerships with Alamance County industries, businesses, nonprofits, as well as local, state, and federal elected officials, which many of the speakers in attendance Monday afternoon lauded.
Also among his proudest accomplishments, Gatewood told the newspaper prior to his retirement, had been “earning the trust and support of the people of Alamance County and trustees, faculty, staff, and students at ACC.”
His tenure at ACC tracked a similar trajectory to his tenure as president of the Cascade Campus, where Gatewood had successfully gained support for a multi-million dollar bond package; developed dual degree programs for Portland high school students; and launched 400 partnerships with local industries, as Gatewood told ACC’s trustees during his finalist interview in 2013.
This week, Gatewood told The Alamance News that retirement is “the most boring job I’ve ever had.”
