James M. Rosser, who served for 34 years as president of California State University, Los Angeles, had a campus building renamed in his honor. The old Wing B of the Wallis Annenberg Integrated Sciences Complex is now known as James M. Rosser Hall.
Dr. Rosser served as president of the university from 1979 to 2013. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology and a doctorate in health education, all from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Arletha McSwain, dean of the Online College at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, has been selected to receive the Hall of Fame Award from the United States Distance Learning Association. Dr. McSwain joined the faculty at Bethune-Cookman in 2014. Earlier, she was dean of the School of Extended Learning and a professor of education at Norfolk State University in Virginia.
Dr. McSwain holds bachelor’s and master’s degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. She earned a Ph.D. in early childhood education from the University of Missouri.
Carrie Parker Taylor, the first African American women to enroll at Indiana University in Bloomington was honored with the unveiling of a portrait in the East Lounge of Indiana Memorial Union.
Taylor enrolled at Indiana University in January 1898 but only stayed one semester due to difficultly balancing her academic work with the job she had to hold to afford tuition. In 2015, the university established a scholarship to help a second, third, or fourth-year student finish his or her degree. Priority is given to a first-generation college student.
