Three African Americans Appointed to Dean Posts at Colleges and Universities

Cherisse Jones-Branch has been named dean of the Graduate School at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Dr. Jones-Branch, the James E. and Wanda Lee Vaughn Endowed Professor of History at the university, will begin her new duties on July 1. Dr. Jones-Branch joined the history department faculty in 2003. She is the author of Crossing the Line: Women’s Interracial Activism in South Carolina During and After World War II (University Press of Florida, 2014).

Professor Jones-Branch is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University.

Justin Rose was appointed dean of faculty recruitment, retention, and diversity at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. When he comes to Rhodes this summer, he will also serve as an associate professor of political science at the college. Dr. Rose currently serves as an associate professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Dr. Rose is the author of The Drum Major Instinct: Martin Luther King, Jr’s Theory of Political Service (University of Georgia Press, 2019).

Dr. Rose is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He holds a master’s degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Jason Geary will be the new dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He will officially begin his new duties on July 1. Dr. Geary has been serving as a professor of musicology and director of the University of Maryland School of Music. He is the author of The Politics of Appropriation: German Romantic Music and the Ancient Greek Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Dr. Geary is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

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