Dr. Belle S. Wheelan had promised herself that she would not become a teacher like her mother, because there was simply “too much paperwork” involved.
As an African-American woman with more than 40 years of experience in higher education, Dr. Belle S. Wheelan has certainly become used to breaking barriers and shattering glass ceilings.
After a successful career as a community college professor and administrator, and almost four years as Virginia secretary of education in Gov. Mark Warner’s administration, Wheelan made history yet again. In 2005, she was named the first African-American, first woman and first former community college president to take the helm of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Commission on Colleges (COC), a regional organization founded in 1895 that accredits more than 13,000 educational organizations throughout the South.
In almost 10 years as president of SACSCOC, Wheelan has been the public face of the agency, helping its 805 institutions understand that accreditation is a continual process and something that they need not fear.
“I keep telling people, ‘We are not here to get you,’” Wheelan says, sitting behind a desk in her spacious office at the SACS headquarters in a suburb outside of Atlanta. “This is a continuous improvement process. And if you listen to what we say and follow the examples we give you, you won’t have any problems with us.”
That kind of tough but hands-on approach has won over college leaders, who have at times been somewhat fearful of the accreditation process or even at odds with some of SACS’ rules and guidelines.
President Michael J. Sorrell of Paul Quinn College, which lost its accreditation from SACS in 2009 and was forced to gain its accreditation through the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, says he considers Wheelan a mentor and says that he has personally benefited from her sage advice and counsel.
“Given Paul Quinn’s relationship with SACS during the first two years of my presidency, people are always surprised when they hear me praise Belle Wheelan. What those people fail to realize is that Belle was among the first people to believe in my leadership and presidential potential,” says Sorrell, who is in the process of reapplying for membership.
