The Lyrics to Dr. Kim Ennis’ Song Were Written at Bevill State Community College
Words by Terrell Manasco | Image by Al Blanton
In 1985, 22-year-old Kim Ennis strolled across Bevill State Community College’s campus and climbed those long, uphill steps to Davis Hall for the first time as an employee. No one could have guessed that the new Financial Aid Director was destined for a much loftier position years later.
Not even Dr. Ennis herself. Asked whether she ever envisioned occupying the president’s office one day, she leans forward, eyes wide in astonishment, and says emphatically, “Oh no! Never! I didn’t have a plan back then.”
That’s not to say she achieved success effortlessly or via some mystical serendipity. Nor was her path to get there easy.
Ennis was only seven years old when her mother passed away, leaving her to be raised by her aunt in the Eldridge area. After graduating from Carbon Hill High School, the Lady Who Would Be President earned her associate’s degree in business at Walker College (now BSCC) in 1982. She returned to Walker/Bevill State three years later, this time as Financial Aid Director.
“I was really put in a role that was totally against what I would naturally enjoy,” Dr. Ennis says. “I am a people person, straight out. Financial Aid combined the two worlds. I was helping people, but I still had to do the paperwork and balance all that. That’s what really helped me grow and be able to flourish in my career.”
Not every moment was spent crunching numbers and poring over mountains of paperwork. Even as she was forging a career, Ennis found time for recreation. “We worked hard, and we took care of students,” Ennis says. “It was a happy time. We had pep rallies. We celebrated when it was time to go to basketball games. We, as employees, looked forward to it as much as the students did.”
Bevill State’s merger with UAB in 1998 expanded Ennis’s role beyond financial aid. It also provided opportunities to develop her leadership skills, like the business incubator on Industrial Blvd. “I was having to reinvent myself,” Ennis explains. “It’s a totally different organizational structure. I was working with our business incubator and trying to figure out, ‘what’s my path now?’”
Dr. Ennis continued to prove her mettle, serving briefly as BSCC’s interim president in 2015. She returned as president in 2017 but had hardly settled in when her leadership abilities were put to the test. “I discovered the college had been deficit spending for a number of years…and we were about to again,” she says.
“Some really hard decisions had to be made,” she adds. “Most of our budget is personnel, so that's where you're going to cut. You have to look at your resources and see what we could do more efficiently.”
Dr. Ennis weathered the tempest, while all the while continuing to lead the college to many victories. Under her watch, Bevill State received their SACSCOC 10-year Reaffirmation of Accreditation, and expanded workforce partnerships and career tech opportunities including the development of the BSCC/Alabama Power HVAC Training Facility and the BSCC Workforce Solutions Rapid Training Center. She also led the charge as Bevill State charted new territory in education as the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Bevill State now appears to have the wind behind her sails. After 35 years, Dr. Ennis has decided to weigh anchor and set sail as well. As of Sept. 30, she will be officially retired. “I feel like everything in life has a season,” she says. “This was the season that I needed to be right where I've been for three years. I knew in my heart that for me, this was the best time. I’ve accomplished what I needed to.”
Ennis says she is confident she leaves Bevill State in good hands. “There's a great team at this institution and that I feel good about as I'm leaving,” she says. “They've been right here with me through all those hard things we had to do. We're in good shape.”
In her three-plus decades career, Dr. Ennis has been privileged to work alongside many individuals who have mentored her along her journey, including Jack Mott, David Rowland, Harold Wade, Devin Stephenson, Linda Lewis, Hilde Tate, Carol Morgan, Jerry Dollar, and Foster Watkins.
What’s next for Dr. Ennis after she hangs up her mortarboard? She doesn’t know for sure. Perhaps the best response was her reply to Mike Royer on a recent segment of WVUA’s Spirit of Alabama.
“Like I told Mike, I’m going to quit trying to take the pen out of God's hand; He's writing my story.” 78