A Trio of African Americans Appointed to Dean Positions at Colleges and Universities

James Frazier will be the next dean of the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University. He will assume his new duties on June 19, 2019. Since 2001, Dr. Frazier has served on the faculty in the department of dance and choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He was promoted to full professor in 2012. Dr. Frazier was interim dean of the School of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University for the 2016-17 academic year.

Professor Frazier earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master of fine arts degree in dance from Florida State University. He holds a holds a doctorate in dance education from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Toniette Haynes Robinson has been named dean of educational resources at North Lake College within the Dallas County Community College District. She has spent the last 10 years at Austin Community College in student life programming.

Dr. Robinson holds a bachelor’s degree in communication studies, a bachelor’s degree in ethnic studies, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy from the University of Texas at Austin. She also earned a master’s degree in college student development from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas.

Sylvester Williams will be the new dean of the College of Business and Management at East Stroudsburg University, one of 14 campuses of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. He has been serving as an associate professor and chair of the department of business at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. There, he also served as the co-director of the college’s interdisciplinary center for data analytics.

Dr. Williams is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. He earned an MBA and a juris doctorate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.