Miles College President Gets a Vote of Confidence and a Contract Extension
The board of trustees of Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, has voted to extend the contract of President Bobbie Knight through May 2024. Knight was originally selected to serve as interim president of the college beginning September 1, 2019. She was named permanent president of the college in March 2020.
Colette Pierce Burnette Is Stepping Down as President of Huston-Tillotson University in Texas
Dr. Pierce Burnette was named president in 2015. She is the first woman to hold the position since the 1952 merger of Tillotson College and Samuel Huston College. She will pass the baton of leadership on June 30.
Jermaine Williams Appointed President of Montgomery College in Maryland
Since 2019, Dr. Williams has been serving as president of Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York. Earlier, he was vice president for student affairs at North Shore Community College in Danvers, Massachusetts. Before that, he held various administrative posts at Northeastern Illinois University.
Tonya Smith-Jackson to Serve as Provost at North Carolina A&T State University
Dr. Smith Jackson has worked for North Carolina A&T since 2013, most recently as senior vice provost for academic affairs. She originally joined A&T as a professor and chair of the department of industrial and systems engineering. Earlier in her career she taught at Virginia Tech.
Roberta Waite Appointed Dean of the Georgetown University School of Nursing
Dr. Waite is a professor of nursing and executive director of Drexel University’s Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services – a nurse-managed community-based organization that provides comprehensive care to thousands of individuals each year.
Crystal Williams Will Be the Eighteenth President of the Rhode Island School of Design
President-elect Williams has been serving as a professor of English and vice president and associate provost for community & inclusion at Boston University. She began her academic career at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She later served as associate vice president for strategic initiatives at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Walter McCollum Named Chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College in Richmond, Indiana
Dr. McCollum recently served as vice president/senior associate vice provost for Miami Dade College Online. Earlier, Dr. McCollum served as dean of student affairs at Walden University.
Two African American Women Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions
Jullet Davis Weaver will be the dean of the Blair College of Health at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, effective March 1, 2022, and Evelyn Fields has been appointed acting dean of the College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences at South Carolina State University.
Eric Pryor Chosen as the Next President of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine...
Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the fine arts, innovative exhibitions of historic and contemporary American art, and a world-class collection of American art. Since 2015, Pryor has served as president of the Harlem School of the Arts in New York City.
Benjamin Talton Named Director of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University
The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center houses one of the most comprehensive collections of African-American, African, and Africana history and memorabilia found anywhere in the world. Its collections include hundreds of thousands of pamphlets, books, periodicals, photographs, personal papers, manuscripts, music, artifacts, and other materials.
East Carolina University Names Robin Coger as Provost/Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Dr. Coger is currently the dean of the College of Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University. Earlier, she was a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering and engineering science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte from 1996 to 2011. She will take on her new job in July 2022.
James T. Minor Appointed Chancellor of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Minor most recently served as assistant vice chancellor and senior strategist in the Office of the Chancellor at California State University. Prior to his post at California State University, Dr. Minor served as deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. He will begin his new job on March 1.
Tuskegee University Appoints S. Keith Hargrove as Its Next Provost
Dr. Hargrove has been serving as dean of the College of Engineering at Tennessee State University. He previously served as chairperson of the department of industrial, manufacturing & information engineering in the Clarence Mitchell, Jr. School of Engineering at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Hettie Williams Will Be the Next Leader of the African American Intellectual History Society
Dr. Williams is an associate professor of African American history in the department of history and anthropology at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. Her teaching and research interests include: African American intellectual history, gender in U.S. history, and race/ethnicity studies.
Thema Bryant-Davis Has Been Named President-Elect of the American Psychological Association
Dr. Bryant Davis, professor of psychology and director of the Culture and Trauma Research Lab at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, is the youngest person to be elected president of the association and the fourth Black woman to hold the post.
Johns Silvanus Wilson Jr. Chosen to Lead the Millennium Leadership Initiative
A former president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Dr. Wilson was executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from 2009-2013. He will now serve as executive director of the Millennium Leadership Initiative at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Janai Nelson Appointed President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund
Janai Nelson has served as associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for the past eight years. Earlier, she spent nearly 10 years in academia as a full professor and high-level administrator and dean at St. John’s University School of Law in New York.
The First African American President of Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland
Dr. Daria Willis currently serves as president of Everett Community College in Washington. Earlier, Dr. Willis was the provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Onondaga Community College of the State University of New York and dean of academic studies at Lee College in Baytown, Texas.
The Chair-Elect of the National Association of College Admission Counseling’s Board of Directors
Since 2018, Vern Granger has been director of undergraduate admissions in the Division of Enrollment Planning & Management at the University of Connecticut. In each of the undergraduate admissions cycles since his appointment, the university has attracted record numbers of students of color as part of the incoming classes.
The Next Chancellor of the North Orange County Community College District in California
Byron D. Clift Breland has been serving as chancellor of the San Jose – Evergreen Community College District located in Silicon Valley. From 2013 to 2018 he was president of San José City College. He will begin his new job on January 18.
Marcus Jones Is the First Black President of Northwestern State University in Louisiana
Before being named interim president in July 2021, Jones was executive vice president and chief operating officer for the University of Louisiana System. He was executive vice president for university and business affairs at Northwestern State from 2017 to 2020 and has been a faculty member since 1994.
The First African Woman to Win the African Studies Association’s Distinguished Africanist Award
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí is a professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York. In the 38-year history of the honor, she is the first African woman to win the Distinguished Africanist Award. More than half the recipients have been White men.
Three Colleges and Universities Announce the Appointment of African American Deans
Hasan C. Crockett is the new dean of liberal arts and humanities at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. Jennifer Faison Kelly is the new dean of the School of Education at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and Johannah Williams has been hired as the dean of the STEM Division at Nashville State Community College.
Reginald DesRoches Will Be the Eighth President of Rice University in Houston
The will of oil tycoon William Marsh Rice stipulated that only White students would be allowed to enroll at the university bearing his name. From its founding in 1912 to 1965, no Black student was permitted to enroll at Rice University. Next summer, the university will install its first Black president.
The American Psychological Association Apologizes for Its Past History of Racism
The apology began by stating that "the American Psychological Association failed in its role leading the discipline of psychology, was complicit in contributing to systemic inequities, and hurt many through racism, racial discrimination, and denigration of people of color."
Samuel Mukasa Is the New Provost at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Dr. Mukasa is the former dean of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota and former dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences and Eric J. Essene Professor of Geochemistry at the University of New Hampshire.
Vanderbilt University’s Renã Robinson Is Leading a National Organization of Black Chemists
Renã A.S. Robinson, associate professor of chemistry and Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, has been named president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).
Once Again, Regina Favors Selected to Lead Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock
For the second time, Regina Favors has been named interim president of Arkansas Baptist College, a historically Black educational institution in Little Rock. Favors is the former president and CEO of Pinnacle Business Solutions, a subsidiary of Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Sonja Stills Will Be the First Woman Commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Stills currently serves as the chief of staff and chief operating officer of the MEAC. She also serves as the MEAC’s director of Esports. Before arriving at the MEAC, Stills served as senior woman administrator for the athletics department at Hampton University in Virginia.
Ashley Jones Appointed Poet Laureate of the State of Alabama
Ashley M. Jones is the youngest and first person of color to be named poet laureate of Alabama, a position created 91 years ago. Jones teaches at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
Gloria Blackwell Is the New CEO of the American Association of University Women
Blackwell had been serving as the executive vice president and chief program officer for the association. For 17 years, she directed AAUW’s highly esteemed fellowships and grants program which has awarded more than $70 million in funding to women scholars and programs in the U.S. and overseas.
Notre Dame’s K. Matthew Dames Is the New Leader of the Association of Research...
Dr. Dames came to Notre Dame this fall after serving as Boston University Librarian since 2018. Earlier, Dr. Dames was associate university librarian for scholarly resources and services at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
A Trio of Black Scholars Who Have Been Appointed Deans
Kimberly Moorehead has been named dean of the University College at Dillard University in New Orleans. Malcolm Butler will be the next dean of the Cato School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Nicquet Blake was appointed dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California, San Francisco.
Linda Scott Was Named President-Elect of the American Academy of Nursing
Dr. Scott became the eighth dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. Earlier she was associate dean for academic affairs, director of graduate studies, and urban health at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Nursing.
Olufunke Fontenot is the New Provost at Fort Valley State University in Georgia
Before coming to Fort Valley State University in 2019, Dr. Fontenot served as the interim regional vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of South Florida – St. Petersburg. Dr. Fontenot also served as associate provost and associate vice president for academic affairs, and interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Albany State University in Georgia.
Three African Americans Who Have Been Appointed Deans at Universities
Marla Love has been named the Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Asquith S. “Sean” Armstrong has been named dean of University College at Washington University in St. Louis and Arlene J. Montgomery is the new interim dean of the School of Nursing at Hampton University in Virginia.
