Alecia A. DeCoudreaux, president of Mills College in Oakland, California, has announced that she will step down in June 2016. She became president of the women’s college on July 1, 2011.
Mills College, founded in 1852, enrolls about 1,000 undergraduate students and 600 graduate students. Blacks make up 6 percent of the undegraduate student body.
Before coming to Mills College, President DeCoudreaux was vice president and deputy general counsel for Eli Lilly and Company, the major pharmaceutical firm. She joined the legal staff at Eli Lilly in 1980.
A native of Chicago, DeCoudreaux is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she double majored in English and political science. She earned a law degree at Indiana University.