As Concordia College puts the final touches on its annual homecoming celebration, the college’s seventh president took time to reflect on homecoming, where the college has been and where it is developing.

For the Rev. Tilahun Mekonnen Mendedo, this is a new experience as leader of the Concordia College campus. Mendedo was installed as president Jan. 14. The college celebrated his inauguration in May.

Mendedo says he sees homecoming as a very important time in campus life.

“It’s a time it connects the college and the alumni members,” he said. “And it’s a time the students who are here after so many stressful tests and times utterly stay relaxed. And it’s a time that brings some local high school, colleges and the community together to celebrate this moment and this time. For Concordia, it is a great time.”

The college uses this time as a way to recruit new students.

One might ask what a small college in a small city in the Alabama Black Belt might have to offer as enrichment for a student. Mendedo will tell that person quickly: A place in history.

Mendedo pointed out that throughout history, successful universities began in monasteries, small towns, or remote areas.

“I attended some school in Germany. People are aware about the University of Guttenberg. That is a big university. Without the university what is the city of Guttenberg?” he said. “Just like Auburn. What is Auburn without Auburn University. I think Concordia as a four-year higher ed institution here, even now could be and even now is still a pride of Selma, and would like to capture this moment not just by ourselves but in collaboration with other higher ed institutions, either Wallace Community College or Selma University or others that perhaps I don’t know. We can make this place a better place.”

The key is Selma’s history. Mendedo calls it the “DNA.” He knew of Selma and its role in securing voting rights for African-Americans as a ninth-grade student in Ethiopia.

“I feel so privileged to touch the ground itself. Not only to be the president of the college in Selma. That connection is so great for me,” he said.

There might not be diamonds or oil in the ground here, but Selma has a history and a heritage, Mendedo stressed, which transcends not just to the town, the region but worldwide.

The history of Selma is, to Mendedo, capital. It can be used and Concordia can play an important role.

“We can set up an international institution here, and that’s one of my ambitions, if God will and things work out, that’s what I would like to see especially with the facilities we have — the big white building at the former children home to be used as a center for civil rights movement studies or a kind of heritage or conservation of a historical heritage site,” he said.

For now, his focus is on academics. In the year he has been at Concordia, the college has worked to strengthen its accreditation standing. Mendedo has formed a committee to study the institution’s effectiveness. That review is just complete.

There are other plans, ever-changing plans as the school advances and the students’ needs — many of those students who are from this region, 68 percent — surface and need to be met, Mendedo said.

Students need more space that is physical. The athletes need a space to expand. To “stretch their muscles,” the president said.

At the same time he has concerns for students’ abilities to relax and enjoy the social aspects of campus life, the president also raises concerns for their academic well-being, saying that a football player who goes professional, but does not know how to manage his business would not be successful in the end.

It is this concern for academics that have Mendedo talking about cooperating with other Concordia institutions across the nation to cooperatively develop masters programs. Or working with Wallace Community College and Vaughan Regional Medical Center to enhance the medical/technical training in the area.

All of this, Mendedo says, all of this comes with God’s help, as his hand touches gently the Bible on his desk.

“We are shaping our strategic plan and our vision based on what’s going on around us,” he said.