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Dr. Brenda A. Allen is a psychologist and current president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. She is well-known for her work in educational psychology. She recently gained recognition for her work at Winston-Salem State University prior to being selected as President of Lincoln University, where she led the revision of the curriculum, oversaw the establishment of WSSU’s first two doctoral programs, expanded undergraduate research funding, restructured academic support to strengthen advising, created an Office of Faculty Affairs, strengthened standards for tenure and promotion, and helped to raise more than $10 million for capital projects, scholarships, and other student support. Under her leadership, the University’s retention and graduation rates rose, the number of students engaged in research and study abroad increased, and faculty became re-energized.

Dr. Allen has contributed to the Black Psychology movement that addresses the presuppositions that are pervasive in the field of Psychology. Her studies often center around assessment of minority children and how to teach students from diverse backgrounds, cultural contexts, and learning styles.

Career

From July, 2009 through June, 2017 she served as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Winston Salem State University (WSSU).  Dr. Allen was also a tenured member of the faculty there, holding the title of Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences.  At WSSU, Dr. Allen’s primary responsibility was to provide executive level leadership for the institution as it pursued its academic mission.  Dr. Allen was responsible to the Chancellor for the overall coordination and effective implementation of the University’s academic programs, and exercised leadership in promoting quality instruction, research, and university and public service. She had responsibility for developing and administering the academic policies and regulations of the University, and in collaboration with other senior officers, she had lead responsibility for the development of the University’s annual budget and long-term financial plans.

As Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost, Dr. Allen provided oversight and leadership of the following academic and operating units: the College of Arts, Sciences; Business and Education; the School of Health Sciences and University College.

Other units reporting to the Provost included: Information Resources (IT and the Library); Institutional Planning, Assessment and Research; the Division of Lifelong Learning (Evening and Week-end Programs, Continuing Education, Distance Learning and Summer Session); the Honors College; Enrollment Management (Admission, Financial Aid, and the Registrar); the Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning; the Center for Community Safety; the Center for Health Disparities; and the Center for Design Innovations.

Dr. Allen departed WSSU with a legacy of achievement. Her many accomplishments included leading revision of the curriculum, overseeing the establishment of WSSU’s first two doctoral programs, expanding undergraduate research funding, restructuring academic support to strengthen advising, creating an Office of Faculty Affairs, strengthening standards for tenure and promotion, and helping raise more than $ 10 million for capital projects, scholarships and other student support. Under her watch, the university’s retention and graduation rates rose dramatically and the number of students engaged in research and study abroad also increased.

Dr. Allen served as Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity before moving to WSSU.  There she was credited with helping to raise nearly $15 million to support diversity goals, co-authoring a successful $3.3 million NSF ADVANCE Grant, and leading efforts that culminated in 36% and 45% increases in the number of women and minority faculty members, respectively.

Prior to joining Brown University, Dr. Allen held a number of academic and administrative positions at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Promoted through the ranks at Smith to Full Professor Dr. Allen served as the chair of the African American Studies Department, the Assistant to the President and Director of Institutional diversity, and Special Assistant to the Provost.

Prior to her tenure at Smith College, Dr. Allen spent three years at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where she held several positions, including Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychology, and Lecturer in the Departments of Psychology and African American Studies.

Dr. Brenda A. Allen was named the 14th president of her alma mater, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania on May 11, 2017.  She began her tenure on July 1, 2017.

Education

Dr. Allen completed her Bachelor's of Arts in Psychology in 1981 at Lincoln University, where she currently is president. She then moved on to her graduate studies at Howard University, with a focus in Experimental Psychology in 1984 at Howard University. She stayed at Howard and completed her Ph.D. in Psychology in 1988.

Postgraduate Studies

Harvard University, Institute for Educational Management, 2001

Smith College, Management Program, 1998

Yale University, Postdoctoral Associate, 1989-1990

Yale University, Postdoctoral Fellow, 1987-1989 

Works of Note

Alleviating Cultural Discontinuity (1992)

Alongside Wade Boykin of Howard University, Dr. Allen conducted a study that addressed the academic achievement gap of young African Americans and their White counterparts. Many works up until this point have pointed to the "culturally deprived" environments of Black homes. Allen and Boykin however, flipped this narrative, pointing to the structure of the American school system not being built with African Americans in mind. They argue that "much of the school failure exhibited by African-American children can be explained in terms of the cultural discontinuity resulting from a mismatch between salient features cultivated in the African American home and proximal environments and those typically afforded within the United States educational system." African American children are taught values and lessons that are at times, contrary to those taught at their schools, causing a sense of confusion within the children that can lead to decreased ability to perform. Like many black psychologists at this time, Allen and Boykin pointed out how African Americans will always be judged as deficient when they are held to Eurocentric standards.

Interaction of Culture/Ethnicity with Reward Structures in Group Learning (2009)

With Eric Hurley of Pomona College and Wade Boykin of Howard University, Dr. Allen conducted a study that tested the hypothesis that cultural differences in group orientation predict an interaction between ethnicity and reward structure on math performance after group learning. They found that their predictions were true as African Americans and European Americans' performance after studying in a group differed from each other depending on the reward structure of the study session in which they participated. What this means is that discussions about how to motivate students are flawed, as they operate on the presumption that there is a "right" way for all students, instead of acknowledgeing that different students from different backgrounds can respond differently to any given reward structure.

Awards and Honors

Black History Month Community Service Award, Salem Lodge, Winston-Salem, NC, 2014 

Woman of Achievement Award, General Federation of Women’s Club, NC, 2013

Woman of Vision Award, YWCA of Winston-Salem, NC, 2013

Women in Business, Triad Business Journal, 2013

Black Student Alliance Faculty Award, Smith College, 1999 Distinguished Ph.D. Alumni Award, Howard University, 1998 

President’s Annual Award, Promotion of the Smith Design for Diversity, Smith College, 1994

Junior Faculty Teaching Award, Smith College, 1992 

Publications

Journal Articles

Hurley, E.A.; Allen, B.A., Boykin. A.W (2009). Culture and the interaction of student ethnicity with reward structures in group learning. Cognition and Instruction, 27(2), 121-146.

Hurley, E. A. and Allen, B.A. (2007) Asking the how questions: quantifying group processes behaviors. Journal of General Psychology, 134(1), 5-21.

Marryshow, D. J.,; Hurley, E.A.; Allen, B.A.; Tyler, K.M. and Boykin, A.W (2005). Impact of learning orientation on African American children’s attitudes towards high achieving peers. The American Journal of Psychology, 118(4), 603-618

Hurley, E.A.; Boykin, A.W. and Allen, B.A. (2005). Communal vs. Individual Learning of a Math Estimation Task: African American Children and the Culture of Learning Contexts. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 139(6), 513-527.

Martin, B.S., Hurley, E.A.; Allen, B.A.; Boykin, A.W. (2005). Cultural expression and Black students attitude towards high achievers. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 139(3), 247-259.

Allen, B.A; deVilliers, J.G., and Francois, S. ( 2001). Deficits or Differences: Linguist Paths Towards a Theory of Mind. Research on Child Language Acquisition: Proceedings of 18th Conference of International Association for the Study of Child Language. Cascadilla Press.

Boykin, A.W.; Allen, B.A.; Davis, L.H. and DeBritto, A.M. (1997). Task performance Black and white children across levels of presentation variability. The Journal of Psychology, 131(4), 427- 437

Allen, B.A. and Butler, L. (1996). The effects of music and movement opportunity on the analogical reasoning performance of African and Anglo American children. Journal of Black Psychology, 22, 316- 327.

Crosby, F., Allen, B.A., Culbertson, T., Wally, C., Morith, J., Hall, R., Nunes, B. (1994). Taking selectivity into account, how much does gender composition matter?: A re-analysis of M.E. Tidball's research. NWSA Journal, 6(1),107-118.

Allen, B.A. and Armor-Thomas, E. (1993). Construct validation of metacognition. Journal of Psychology, 127(2), 203-211.

Armour-Thomas, E. and Allen, B.A. (1993). How well do teachers teach for the promotion of thinking and learning? Educational Horizons, 71(4), 203-208.

Armour-Thomas, E. and Allen, B.A. (1993). The feasibility of an information processing methodology for the assessment of vocabulary competence. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 20(4), 306-313.

Crosby, F.J., Allen, B.A., and Opotow, S. (1992). Changing patterns of income among blacks and whites before and after E.O. 11246. Social Justice, 5, 335-341.

Allen, B.A. and Boykin, A.W. (1992). African American children and the educational process: Alleviating cultural discontinuity through prescriptive pedagogy. School Psychology Review, 21(4), 586- 593.

Armour-Thomas, E., Bruno, K. and Allen, B.A. (1992). Towards an understanding of higher order thinking among minority students. Psychology in the Schools, 29(3), 273-280.

Allen, B.A. and Boykin, A.W. (1991). The influence of contextual factors on Black and White children's performance: Effects of movement and music. International Journal of Psychology, 26(3), 337-387.

Armour-Thomas, E. and Allen, B.A. (1990). An information processing analysis of analogical reasoning performance of high and low achievers. Psychology in the Schools, 27(3), 269-275.

Boykin, A.W. and Allen, B.A. (1988). Rhythmic movement facilitation of learning in working class Afro- American children. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 149(3), 335-348. 

Book Chapters

Boykin, A.W. and Allen, B.A. (2003). Cultural Integrity and Schooling Outcomes. In P. Pufall and R. Unsworth (Eds.) Childhood in America. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press.

Boykin, A.W. and Allen, B.A. (2000). Beyond Deficit and Difference: Psychological Integrity in Developmental Research. In C.C. Yeakey (ed.) Edmund W. Gordon: Producing Knowledge, Pursuing Understanding. (pp. 15 – 34) Stamford, CT: JAI Press.

Boykin, A.W. and Allen, B.A. (1999). Enhancing African American children’s learning and motivation: Evolution of the verve and movement expression paradigms. In R. Jones (ed.) African American Children, Youth and Parenting, (pp. 115- 152) VA: Cobb and Henry.

Allen, B.A. (1996). Staying in the academy. In F. Crosby and K. Wyche (eds.) Women's Ethnicities: Journeys Through Psychology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Harrell, J.P., Clark, V.R., and Allen, B.A. (1991). That ounce of value: Visualizing the application of psychophysiological methods in Black Psychology. In R. Jones (ed.) Black Psychology 3rd Edition. Berkeley, California: Henry-Cobb.