The medical school’s new director of academic advising has more than a decade of experience sharing best practices with medical students and 15 years of higher education experience in various roles.
Renoulte Allen, EdD, joined WMed in the newly created role June 27. Prior to joining WMed, Dr. Allen was assistant director of academic achievement at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. In the role that he had held since 2011, Dr. Allen was responsible for developing and implementing programming that helped students, coached faculty members on effective coaching and learning strategies and oversaw the peer tutoring and using questions as learning tools programs.
Before joining MSU, Dr. Allen worked as an academic advisor from 2007 to 2011 at Davenport University in Grand Rapids. He also spent several years as an adjunct professor for the Professional and Graduate Studies Programat Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids.
Dr. Allen said he was excited at the opportunity to join WMed and have the opportunity to advance the mission of the newer medical school.
“This is a great opportunity to grow and to challenge myself, and to have a greater impact on students who want to become physicians,” Dr. Allen said.
Dr. Allen is an alumnus of Grand Valley State University, having earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1995. He went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Oral Roberts University in 2007, and he earned his doctorate in educational leadership from MSU in 2019.
As a college student at GVSU, Dr. Allen said he had an influential advisor who impacted his college career. An assistant dean at GVSU’s Minority Business ² Center was encouraging but gave him a “kick in the pants” when he needed it. Her mentorship has influenced the way he counsels students, he said. He is passionate about helping students reach their educational goals, and he likes to get to know students one-on-one and learn their individual stories and what led them to study medicine.
“Our students are very bright people, so if I provide them with good information and good strategies that work for them, they will be able to execute them,” Dr. Allen said. “My philosophy is to support them in the best way that I can.”
As the director of academic advising, Dr. Allen oversees the medical school’s academic and clinical advisors. He serves as WMed’s primary learning specialist, provides direction and vision for the department and helps students develop individualized study plans.
“When they come to medical school, our students learn just how fast medical school goes,” Dr. Allen said. “Each student needs to figure out how they best learn. Medical students are very driven but compassionate and humble people. It’s always amazing to me to see the transformation from when they first arrive and then four years later."
Looking ahead, Dr. Allen said he will work to earn students’ trust and further develop relationships between WMed’s advisors and faculty members and students. Since starting at WMed in late June, he has interviewed faculty members and students to see how they are responding to the medical school’s curriculum ion its current structure. He aims to provide good resources to WMed’s students and embed those resources into the medical school’s curriculum.
“I want to have open lines of communication, work with students and faculty members, and make sure we’re all going in the same direction, speaking the same language,” Dr. Allen said. “Having that type of unity will bring everyone closer together and make the learning experience overall a lot more powerful for everybody that’s involved.”
Dr. Allen and his wife, Tedra, have four young adult and teenage children and live in the Grand Rapids area. In their free time, they enjoy sports, watching movies, going biking and hanging out at the lake or at their backyard pool.