It was 1957 when Dr. Levern Hamlin Allen headed to what was then called Western Carolina College. Allen remembers the long drive to Cullowhee from her where she was living in Charlotte in those days.
“Oh 1957 that was a long time ago. When I look at the pictures of how tiny I was,”says Allen.
Allen needed just 9 credit hours to be certified as a special ed teacher in North Carolina since she got her teaching degree in Virginia. She went on to be a speech and language pathologist. She says many schools wouldn’t accept her because of her race but Western did.
This is the first building on campus ever named for an African American.
“You probably know when most people get a building named after them they have a pile of money or some influence in the legislature but I don’t have either of those things so I know it comes from the heart,” says Allen.
Allen shared a story at the dedication ceremony that had been a secret between herself and Lillian Hirt who was Western’s PR director. Hirt asked her to register for classes seprepartely.
“Apparently that first day of registration there were reporters from Asheville - Asheville Citizen - who came down to do whatever they wanted to do but it was just amazing because I wasn’t there,” says Allen as the crowd laughs.
Allen says everything was cake after that.
“I’m trying to help in my own way. I can’t help monetarily but I can help in my own way. You know when you are retired and on a school teachers salary you don’t do well but you do okay,” says Allen, who now lives in Maryland.
She was an educator for over 25 years.
Micheal Naylor is President of Western Carolina’s African American Alumni Society. He was the president of the Black Student Union in the 1980s - then called the Organization of Ebony Students. He found Allen to invite her to the first black student reunion in 1987.
“That honor of her quiet spirit and quiet power resonated into everything that has happened in her life on campus here and today with the opening of this dorm named in her honor,” says Naylor.
After that reunion, Allen was asked to serve on Western’s Board of Trustees. She served two terms and is most proud of being a part of the search committee that chose Chancellor William Bardo. She says she was inspired by his vision of technology at the school.
“I like to say, ‘He was my candidate and he won out!'”
She also received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2006 to go with her two master’s degrees.
Chancellor Kelli Brown says she is proud to honor Allen with this dedication of the new $48 million dollar residence hall at WCU. She calls her a quiet pioneer of integration.
“In doing it you demonstrated a sense of bravery that I don’t think many of us can comprehend at that time,” says Brown. “You say that you believe others would have done the same thing that you did - I don’t believe that.”
Graduate student Nadaya Womack is in the Higher Education Student Affairs program. Womack says she that as a black woman in a predominantly white field hearing Allen’s story meant a lot to her.
“To come here is very inspiring and to hear her story lit a fire in me to know that the ripple effect of one decision and one choice no matter how unintentional can be so impactful in so many ways,” says Womack.
The residence hall opened in time for the fall semester at Western Carolina. This year the school set a new enrollment record of 12,000 students.
