Alcorn State University will celebrate its 155th anniversary on Tuesday, Sept. 22, when it hosts the Annual Founders’ Day Convocation at 10 a.m. in the Dr. Rudolph E. Waters Sr. Classroom Building — Brian K. Johnson Auditorium.
This year’s convocation carries the theme “Growing Beyond Boundaries: Cultivating Ethical Leadership at Alcorn.”
The College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences will serve as host college for the ceremony, which is one of the university’s oldest annual traditions.
The Rev. Dr. C. Edward Rhodes II, director of Religious and Spiritual Life and director of the Hiram Rhodes Revels Institute for Ethical Leadership, will deliver the keynote address.
Rhodes has served Alcorn for 13 years as director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Later, he became director of the university’s Hiram Rhodes Revels Institute for Ethical Leadership, named for Alcorn’s first president.
A native of Hazlehurst, he holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Mississippi, a Master of Divinity from Duke University Divinity School and a Doctor of Ministry from Wesley Biblical Seminary.
He also pastors Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, the city’s oldest historically Black congregation, and is the author of three books on ministry and leadership. In 2025, he received the Margaret Walker Alexander For My People Award.
Robert Cole, a 1970 Alcorn graduate, will deliver a retrospective titled “Inspire, Innovate, Impact: A Retrospective on Alcorn.”
Cole spent 46 years in federal agriculture service, beginning with the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service in Mississippi and continuing through 33 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Ohio. There, he served as Franklin County executive director and district director before retiring in 2003.
President Barack Obama appointed him to the Ohio State Farm Service Agency Committee in 2015, and he later helped charter the Columbus, Ohio, chapter of the Alcorn State University Alumni Association.
Alcorn was founded in 1871 as the nation’s oldest public historically Black land-grant institution, established after Mississippi residents pushed to educate the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans. It was named for then, Gov. James L. Alcorn. Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, became its first president.
The convocation comes during a period of expansion for the university. Alcorn received a $42 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in October 2025, bringing her total giving to the university to $67 million.
Alcorn was recognized in 2025 as a Carnegie Research College and University, the only public institution in Mississippi to hold that designation.
