Alton B. Pollard III will join the faculty of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as the James and Marilyn Dunn Chair in Baptist Studies in the School of Divinity and University Professor of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. His appointment is effective July 1, 2024. Professor Pollard previously served on the faculty of Wake Forest University from 1988 to 1998. He recently retired from the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, having served as president and professor of religion and culture from 2018 to 2023. Dr. Pollard is the author or editor of seven books, including Mysticism and Social Change: The Social Witness of Howard Thurman (Peter Lang International Publishers, 1992) and The Black Church Studies Reader (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
A graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Dr. Pollard earned a master of divinity degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Duke University.
Renata Arrington Sanders was named chief of the Craig Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a teaching facility for the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Sanders was an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Dr. Sanders holds a bachelor’s degree and a master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She earned her medical degree at the University of Virginia.
Kristina Kersey is a new assistant professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Kersey worked for the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender for over 18 years, specializing in youth defense.
Professor Kersey is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey. She earned a juris doctorate at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.