Three Black Faculty Members Taking on New Assignments in Higher Education

FrancisSean L. Francis was appointed chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health at the University of Louisville. He has been serving as interim chair since February 2015. Dr. Francis joined the faculty at the university in 2012.

Dr. Francis is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta. He earned his medical degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ruqaiijah Yearby 2Ruqaiijah A. Yearby, the first tenured African American woman faculty member at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, has been given the additional responsibility as the law school’s inaugural associate dean of institutional diversity and inclusiveness. Professor Yearby joined the faculty at the law school in 2011. Earlier she taught at the University at Buffalo and Loyola University in Chicago.

Professor Yearby is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Georgetown University Law Center. She also holds a master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Robinson_WilliamWilliam H. Robinson, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has been given the added duty as associate dean of the School of Engineering.

Dr. Robinson joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2003. In 2010 he was promoted to associate professor and became the first African American to be granted tenure in the School of Engineering. Dr. Robinson holds a Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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