Fox Chosen As Community First Award Honoree for Education

Napierra Alexander
Monday, August 16, 2021 12:00 AM
Employees, Community, All, Press Releases, Events

CLEVELAND, Tenn. - One of the hardest aspects of change people had to learn during the pandemic was social distancing. Like other community colleges and universities around the world, Cleveland State faced the challenge of giving students, faculty, and staff access to education and operational needs while maintaining a safe distance from each other. As the Vice President Finance and Chief Operating Officer, Alisha Fox accepted that challenge and made it her duty to restore efficiency and access for anyone connected with CSCC during the pandemic. For all her efforts during the pandemic, Fox was chosen as the 2021 Community First Award Honoree for Education. 

As news involving COVID-19 was continuing to evolve, Fox developed “Know Before You Go,” a campaign to educate everyone on what to expect on campus for the fall 2020 semester after working remotely for a few months. It was a four phase plan that addressed all the integral issues pertaining to COVID-19 concerns like health and safety protocols, facility access, cleaning protocols, communications plans, teaching and learning plans, and screening forms that were utilized for several months on campus. She also adjusted impacted budgets and finances with a team of senior staff in regarding how to best handle COVID-19 grant funds.  

“Although we made a swift and successful transition to remote coursework, some skills and disciplines require hands-on experience such as welding, EMS/paramedic, and law enforcement training,” stated  Alisha Fox, Vice President Finance and Chief Operating Officer. “I am proud to say that we began offering these opportunities sooner than many of our sister institutions safely because we heard from students and faculty that this was needed.” 

As part of getting students back on campus, Fox created protocols that included designated entrances for each building, checkpoints to allow access to buildings, and temperature checks with COVID-19 screenings. The college also increased restroom and touchpoint cleaning while offering hand sanitizing stations in each building. Because of these precautious efforts, the college was able to successfully go back to normalcy by the beginning of May this year. 

One of her biggest accomplishments during the pandemic was spearheading two new building projects for CSCC. Fox was lead during the building of the new Health and Science Center on the college’s campus. This building opened in March and was the first building to be built on the campus in over 46 years. It houses all healthcare and science majors with state-of-the-art laboratories, simulated hospital rooms, and a physician's office. She also managed building the new McMinn Higher Education Center in Athens that opened in June. The center gives students the opportunity to take classes in Athens rather than traveling to the main campus. Even today, she remains busy as she works to renovate the Humanities building for student access this fall semester. 

“There are many educators in our region who did amazing jobs helping their schools through the pandemic,” stated Dr. Bill Seymour, CSCC President. “In addition to her success as Cleveland State's Covid-19 leader, Alisha Fox served as Project Manager for two new academic facilities; one in Cleveland and one in Athens.  These projects totaled $43M dollars and provided many good-paying jobs during a difficult economic period.”

Throughout the pandemic and even now, Fox continues to evolve the college’s ways of helping students learn and grow at CSCC. She seamlessly transitioned a normal operating school to a college that now has the capacity to give students options to best help achieve their educational goals. Many of her colleagues and her team describes her as “A person who excels through adversity and who faces challenges like the pandemic to ultimately serve her community and the students at CSCC.”

“It was a challenging year, but as someone who has never met a challenge they didn’t love, I can say I am proud of our entire CSCC team and how we came together and accomplished great things to continue to meet the needs of our community during an incredibly difficult time,” stated Fox. 

Fox will be honored at the Community First Awards Gala hosted by Cleveland State Community College in September at the Barn at Faith Farms in Athens, TN. 

To purchase a ticket or for more information, contact Cindy Dawson at (423) 614-8703. Tickets for the gala are currently on sale online at mycs.cc/communityfirst. All proceeds from the event will go to the CSCC Foundation Annual Campaign.