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Julianne Malveaux knows how to party.

If you attended the Sept. 12 "Black and White Ball" benefit for the downtown civil rights museum, you already know that.

Malveaux was the feisty woman on the dance floor with the short, neatly trimmed Afro and nimble feet.

Small wonder she was feeling her groove. During her two years as president, Greensboro's tiny but fiercely proud Bennett College for Women is making solid gains, even in the face of a still-fragile economy.

The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges has reffirmed the school's accreditation for another 10 years.

Alumnae giving surpassed the $1 million mark for the 2008-09 academic year.

The school's Henry Pfeiffer Science Building has undergone a federally funded $1.8 million renovation.

And on Oct. 16, the college will break ground on a new honors dormitory and an "intergeneration center" that combines child care and community space.

"It's a really, really exciting time," Malveaux, 56, said last week.

Even as significant are the headlines Bennett hasn't made during her tenure.

Not that long ago it wasn't certain that Bennett, which was founded in 1873, would survive, let alone grow.

So far, so good, it appears, for Malveaux, who succeeded Johnnetta Cole as president in 2007.

When she was introduced as the school's new leader three years ago, some wondered, frankly, if Malveaux was the right fit. It wasn't her credentials -- doctorate from MIT, training as an economist, guest commentator on the cable talk show circuit -- that raised doubts.

It was her style: confident, brassy and opinionated in a way that could be off-putting when one of your main duties is to win friends and influence people -- in a Southern city, no less. Bless her heart.

She was smart enough, they said, but would she spout off and say something that made somebody mad? After all, only weeks before she'd arrived in town Malveaux caused a stir when she said on National Public Radio that the Duke lacrosse players absolved in a sexual assault case did not deserve an apology (except from then-Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong), even after all charges against them had been dropped.

Her profile since then has been decidedly more subdued. Oh, she still writes fiery op-eds and speaks her mind, but the tone and volume are (slightly) softer. And she admits to a comment every now and then that elicits a plaintive, "Oh, I wish you had not said that," among her colleagues.

But Malveaux seems to have settled reasonably well into her adopted hometown.

"I think she got off to a bad start when she offered those comments on the Duke lacrosse case," said Joseph M. Bryan Foundation President Jim Melvin. But he has no complaints about his dealings with Malveaux.

"I think she's direct, maybe even blunt," Melvin said. "But that's not offensive -- at least not to me. Life's too short to say one thing and mean something else."

Meanwhile, the signs point to more stability at Bennett if not outright prosperity. Enrollment is holding steady at 763.

Malveaux has hired a new provost in Bennett alumna Esther Terry, who most recently was chancellor for student affairs and campus life at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Said Terry (Class of 1961) of her boss: "I have a feeling we'll get along pretty well. She's not subtle, but I'm pretty thick-skinned myself and I'm not a shrinking violet. We're on the same page. She wants for Bennett what I want for Bennett."

Malveaux praised her academic affairs team as "stellar" and pronounced her relationship with faculty as productive.

That's no small feat, given the tensions even the charismatic Cole once had with some faculty that prompted her to threaten resigning in 2005.

Part of Malveaux's success may be linked to her ability to accomplish one goal she'd set out in 2007: Bennett faculty in 2008 received their first raises in five years. "The faculty understands that I see them as the backbone of the product," she said.

That said, major challenges remain: Ninety percent of Bennett's students receive some form of financial aid.

Malveaux also would like to increase enrollment to 1,000 and continue to find ways to attract and retain strong faculty.

She holds no illusions that Bennett's struggles are over. "Small-school economics are really, really challenging," she said.

Don't take that as an excuse, she added, merely one of the givens of the job.

"And I promise you," she said, "that Bennett College is not going out of business on my watch."