Dr. Jennifer C. Friday (class of 1977) came to Millikin University from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Described in a Decatur Daily Review article as “Millikin’s best scorer,” she was the first player on a Millikin women’s basketball team to score 400 points. She also participated in track and field. She served as the 1976 Homecoming co-chair and was crowned Millikin’s first Black Homecoming Queen that year. In her time as a Millikin student, Friday served as president of both For Soul Only (FSO) and the Women’s Athletic Association (WAA), the chair of the human relations commission, and the vice president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Kappa Zeta Chapter). Some of her other activities included being a disc jockey for campus radio station WJMU, work on the Millidek (yearbook), and serving on the Student Admission Corps. In 1975, she won the Dr. Jere C. Mickel Human Relations Award, given to the student to who contributes the most to furthering human relations on campus. She later earned her Master’s and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and organized the first reunion of Black Millikin alumni. She was the 1990 winner of the Millikin’s Young Alumnus award and was inducted into the Millikin’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995. A Trustee Emeritus, Dr. Friday served her alma mater as a member of the Board of Trustees starting in 1996 and was Millikin’s 2016 commencement speaker. She worked as a behavioral scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for thirteen years in programs dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention and violence prevention. She later worked in policy development at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. She taught psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College and is founder and president of The Friday Consulting Group, LLC.

By Amanda Pippitt, September 23, 2026