New Posts for Three African American Administrators

Cheryl Harrelson was named vice president for university advancement and president of the New Mexico State University Foundation. She will assume her new duties on May 1. She has been serving as the associate vice president for annual and special gifts, stewardship, and special events for the Washington State University Foundation. Harrelson is the former associate vice president for advancement information services at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She also served as director of advancement services for North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

Harrelson is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles. She holds a master’s degree in education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master’s degree in computer information systems from the University of Phoenix.

Claude Poux was appointed division administrator in the Solar, Stellar, & Planetary Sciences Group at the Harvard College Observatory. He was the business operations manager for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

Poux is a graduate of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and an MBA and a master of public policy degree from the University of Chicago. He is currently working toward a master’s degree in the conceptual and historically studies of science at the University of Chicago.

Ferentz Lafargue was named as the next director of the Davis Center at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Davis Center focuses on inclusion and diversity initiatives. Dr. Lafargue currently teaches history and social sciences at Georgetown Day School in Washington. He will begin his new duties this fall.

Dr. Lafargue is a graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Africana studies and American studies from Yale University. He is the author of Songs in the Key of My Life: A Memoir (Three Rivers Press, 2007).