Brian O. Hemphill was named the seventh president of Radford University in Virginia. The four-year, state-operated university enrolls nearly 9,000 undergraduate students and nearly 1,000 graduate students. African Americans make up 12 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Since July 2012, Dr. Hemphill has served as the 10th president of West Virginia State University, a historically Black educational institution near Charleston, where today Blacks make up only 10 percent of the undergraduate student body. Previously, he was vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Earlier in his career, Dr. Hemphill was dean of students at the University of Arkansas.
President Hemphill will take on his new role as president of Radford University on July 1. He is the co-editor of College in the Crosshairs: An Administrative Perspective on Prevention of Gun Violence (Stylus Publishing, 2015).
Dr. Hemphill is a graduate of Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He holds a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. in higher education and policy studies from the University of Iowa.
