Darrell P. Wheeler will be the next provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. Iona College, located just north of New York City, is affiliated with the Catholic Church. It enrolls about 3,300 undergraduate students and 700 graduate students. African Americans make up 9 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Dr. Wheeler has been serving as professor and dean of the School of Social Welfare and vice provost for public engagement at the University at Albany of the State University of New York. Earlier, he was dean and professor at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Wheeler will begin his new job at Iona College on July 1.
In accepting the appointment, Dr. Wheeler said that “I am very honored to have this opportunity to work with members of the Iona College faculty, staff, students, and alumni. I look forward to being an active member of this community and working to ensure that Iona stimulates intellectual growth and positive impacts for our students, alumni, and local and global communities.”
Dr. Wheeler holds a master of social work degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. He earned a master of public health degree and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Pittsburgh.
I am delighted to see an African American take on a major leadership role at Iona College. It is long overdue and I look forward to seeing Dr. Wheeler make change and sustain the presence of African Americans on that campus. I am an African American alumni of Iona College and was there when you could count the African American students on two hands and have fingers left over. There were absolutely NO African American faculty to sight. Iona College have come a long way. I hope and pray that this is the start of placing more African Americans in leadership position.