Carole Ward Allen is currently serving her third term as a member of the BART Board of Directors. Voters first elected her to the BART Board on November 3, 1998, to represent the 4th BART District, which includes the City of Alameda and portions of Oakland. She was first sworn into office on December 8, 1998.
 
Dr. Ward Allen currently serves as the Chairperson of the Board’s Police Oversight Review, Planning, Public Affairs, Access & Legislation and Oakland Airport Connector – Coliseum Station Development Liaison committees. She’s Vice Chairperson of the Board’s Warm Springs Policy Committee and serves as a member of the District Security Advocacy Ad Hoc Committee.

On December 15, 2005, BART became the first major transit agency in American history to be led by two African American women after the nine member Board unanimously elected Ward Allen to be its President and Director Lynette Sweet to be its Vice President.  The positions are BART's most powerful posts. The term of Board President lasts one year.

Past BART responsibilities include service as Vice Chairperson of BART's Administration Committee and the District Security Advocacy Ad Hoc Committee, chairperson of the Fruitvale Policy Committee and the Oakland Airport Connector Liaison Committee.  She has also served as Alameda County Alternate for the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Board, and has been a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission AB 842 and the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority Consumer Policy Advisory Liaison Committees.

Ward Allen brings to the BART Board an extensive background in education, administration and community relations. She has served as Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Community Relations and Marketing for the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) Office. Prior to this, she served as a former College Administrator at Laney College, managing the largest Retired Senior Volunteer Program in Northern California, and monitoring a federal budget of  $500,000, including the Office of Community Services, as well as several special grants and programs. She is currently a full time professor in the Ethnic Studies Department and assisted in initial curriculum development. In 2000, she assisted in the passage of Measure E, a $153 million capital improvement bond issue, and in 1986, passage of Measure B, a $50 million capital improvement bond issue.
 
Ward Allen served as president of the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners from 1990 to 1992. She served on the board for seven years and was responsible for businesses, financial, and political strategies for the development of maritime facilities, an international airport, and commercial real estate holdings budget of $100 million, accounting for directly or indirectly more than 44,000 jobs.
 
Peralta Community College honored Director Ward Allen as its 2008 recipient of the President’s Award. In 2008 she also received COMTO’s (Conference of Minority Transportation Officials) Recognition Award and City Flight Magazine named her “One of the 30 Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area.”

Ward Allen was honored in 2005 by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc Oakland/Bay Area Chapter at its 7th Annual Madam C.J. Walker Business and Community Recognition Awards Luncheon.
 
Dr. Carole Ward Allen holds a Master of Fine Arts degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Jose State University.  Ward Allen studied Art at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and also Politics and Art of West Africa at Fourah Bay College University, Sierra Leone; University of Ile-Ife, Nigeria; the University of Kumasi, Ghana; and University of Nairobi, Kenya. She also earned a doctorate in higher education from Nova Southeastern University, Florida.

Media & Public Affairs
Updated June 4, 2009