• Esther S. Powell, director of nontraditional adult student services at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, was elected vice president of the Alpha Sigma Lambda Society.
The society which honors adult students who achieved high academic standards while maintaing responsibilities outside of academia, has more than 300 chapters nationwide. The society is headquartered at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.
• Kim Luckes was named executive vice president and chief operating officer at Norfolk State University in Virginia. For the past year, Luckes has served as acting president of the university. Previously, she was assistant to the president and liaison to the university’s board of visitors. Prior to coming to Norfolk State, she served as provost at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and at Hampton University in Virginia.
Luckes is a graduate of Elizabeth City State University and the North Carolina Central University School of Law.
• Lee H. Melvin was named associate vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University. He will take his new position in September. He has been serving as vice president for enrollment planning and management at the University of Connecticut. Previously, he has held admissions positions at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin, and Wayne State University.
Melvin orginially planned on a career in opera. He earned a bachelor of music education degree at Houston Baptist University and a master of music degree from the University of Michigan.
• William E. Hudson Jr. was appointed vice president for student affairs at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. He has been serving as an adjunct professor at the university and as a consultant to college and universities on minority recruitment.
Dr. Hudson holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida A&M. He earned a Ph.D. in rehabilitation counseling at Florida State University.
• Mohammed Ali Pate, an adjunct professor at the Duke University Global Health Institute, was named minister of state for health for the nation of Nigeria.
Dr. Pate is a medical doctor and holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
• Harry W. Downes Jr. is the new director of the department of public safety and chief of university police at Delaware State University in Dover. He served for 26 years as an officer of the Delaware State Police.
Downes holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wilmington University.
• Timothy E. Sams was named vice president for student life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Since 2010 he was associate dean of students at the Abu Dhabi campus of New York University. Previously he was assistant dean and director of the Black Cultural Center at Swarthmore College.
Dr. Sams is a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York. He holds a master’s degree in Africana studies from SUNY-Albany and a Ph.D. from Temple University.
• Gwendolyn Hall was promoted to vice president and academic operations officer at the American Public University in Charles Town, West Virginia. She has been serving as dean of the School of Security and Global Studies. She joined the university’s faculty in 2005 after teaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy, working at the Pentagon, and as a staff member for the Select Committee on Homeland Security of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Dr. Hall holds bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland.
