African American Alumni Association of North Central College

The African American Alumni Association of North Central College is, as the name implies, an association of African-American alumni. It grew out of the desire of several black alumni that there should be some financial assistance to black students that comes specifically from black alumni.

Our effort began with a meeting with the Director of Multi-Cultural Affairs, Sally Davis-O’Shaunessy, in spring of 1991. After that meeting, the college sponsored a lunch at Homecoming in 1991, a lunch that was attended by a couple of alumni and by the brand new president Hal Wilde. After that Homecoming, we gathered contact information from college and from our personal records. Planning meetings followed and in 1995 AAAANCC was officially chartered as a not-for-profit corporation.

It is our intention to support black students who are dedicated in their academic pursuits and who also are active in the NCC college community and the African American community at large. Our first two African American Alumni Association Scholarships were awarded in 1998, for $250 each, and have steadily increased in amount. In 2017, the scholarship was renamed to AAAANCC Nicholas Hood Memorial Scholarship.

While we were setting up the scholarship, several alumni commented that often their shortage was “around the edges” – for books, calculators and other such items. It was then that we also established the AAAANCC Book Fund, a fund separate from the scholarship grants and administered by the college.