Black Woman Named Chancellor of the University of the West of Scotland
Yekemi Otaru, a 42-year-old native of Nigeria, holds four higher education degrees and has considerable industrial experience in engineering and marketing. She is co-founder and executive director at Doqaru Limited, a prominent Aberdeen-based sales and marketing firm.
Four African American Women Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions
The new deans are Ashley C. Benson at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Tywana Hemby at Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina, Ethel Scurlock at the University of Mississippi, and Jackie Jones at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Sheila Edwards Lange Chosen to Be the Next Chancellor of the University of Washington-Tacoma
Dr. Edwards Lange has been serving as president of Seattle Central College. She was the vice president for minority affairs and diversity for the University of Washington from 2007 to 2015. Dr. Edwards Lange is scheduled to become chancellor at the University of Washington-Tacoma on September 16.
Shaw University Gives a Major Vote of Confidence to President Paulette Dillard
Paulette Dillard was named interim president of historically Black Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2017. A little more than a year later she became the eighteenth president of Shaw University. Now the board of trustees has extended President Dillard's contract for five years.
La Jerne Terry Cornish to Lead Ithaca College for the 2021-22 Academic Year
Dr. Cornish has been serving as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Ithaca College since 2018. Earlier, she was associate provost for undergraduate studies at Goucher College in Baltimore. She joined the faculty at Goucher in 1998 as an instructor of English.
A Change in Leadership at Historically Black Kentucky State University
M. Christopher Brown resigned his position as the 18th president of Kentucky State University. He was contracted to serve as president through 2025. The resignation comes on the heels of a state-ordered independent audit of the university's finances. The university's board of regents named Clara Ross Stamps, Kentucky State’s senior vice president for brand identity and university relations, as acting president.
Ronnie Hopkins Is the Tenth President of Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina
Prior to being named the president of Voorhees, Dr. Hopkins served as interim president, and before that, he was the institution’s provost and vice president for academic affairs. He is also a tenured professor of English. Before coming to Voorhees, Dr. Hopkins served at Benedict College as founding dean of the Freshman Institute and the School of Honors.
Two African Americans Who Have Been Appointed to Provost Positions
Karyn Scissum Gunn was appointed provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at California State University, Long Beach and Anthony B. Johnson is the new provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Morris Brown College in Atlanta.
Kembra Chambers Is the New Leader of Trenholm State Community College in Montgomery, Alabama
Dr. Chambers has been serving as the interim associate vice chancellor of teaching and learning and chief instructional officer at the Alabama Community College System in addition to her role as executive vice president and vice president of instructional services at Trenholm State.
A Trio of African Americans Who Have Been Appointed Deans
Karen Brown was appointed dean of the School of Education at the University of the Virgin Islands. Samuel Graham, Jr. will be the next dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland and Tamika Wordlow Williams is the new dean of students at Belmont University in Nashville.
LaTonia Collins Smith Has Been Chosen to Lead Historically Black Harris-Stowe State University
Dr. Collins Smith is serving as interim president of the historically Black university in St Louis. She had been serving as provost and vice president for academic affairs. Dr. Collins Smith began her career in higher education at Harris-Stowe State University in 2010 as a project coordinator in the Office of Counseling Services.
A Change in Leadership at South Carolina State University
By a vote of 10 to 3, the board of trustees of South Carolina State University has voted to terminate the contract of President James E. Clark, effective immediately. Alexander Conyers, vice president for strategic alliances and initiatives at the university, was appointed acting president.
Felician University in New Jersey Appoints James W. Crawford III as Its Sixth President
Crawford has been serving as interim president of the university since last fall. He is a retired admiral and the 43rd Judge Advocate General of the United States Navy. In the U.S. Navy for more than three decades, Admiral Crawford served under six Presidents and was lead counsel for the principal military advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Peter Grant Jordan Will Be the Next President of Dutchess Community College in New...
In 2012, Dr. Jordan was appointed president of Tarrant County College-South Campus in Texas. Prior to joining Tarrant, Dr. Jordan held positions of vice president for institutional effectiveness and vice president of enrollment management and student development at LaGuardia Community College in New York.
A Quartet of Black Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to University Dean Positions
The new deans are Sharon E. Milligan at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Daryle Williams at the University of California, Riverside, Carroll Ann Trotman at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry, and Estella Atekwana at the University of California, Davis.
Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates to Join the Faculty at Howard University
After a major controversy, Professor Hannah-Jones has turned down her appointment to an endowed chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to teach at Howard University. She will be joined by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a renown educator, journalist and author who will hold the Sterling Brown Chair in English and Humanities.
Shirley Ann Jackson to Step Down as President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2022
Dr. Jackson was chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1995 to 1999. She then left government service to take over as the 18th president of RPI in 1999. She was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in any discipline from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
M. Brian Blake Appointed President of Georgia State University in Atlanta
Dr. Blake is currently executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In 2015, he was appointed provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He will begin his new duties on August 9.
Muriel B. Mickles is the New Leader of Danville Community College in Virginia
Dr. Mickles had been serving as vice president of academics, students, and workforce development at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg. She will serve as interim president of Danville Community College while a search for a permanent president is conducted.
A Trio of Black Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions
Tyson King-Meadows was appointed dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Julianne Malveaux has been appointed dean of the new College of Ethnic Studies at California State University, Los Angeles and Olusegun A. Ojewuyi will serve as interim dean for the new College of Arts and Media at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Melissa Nobles Appointed Chancellor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Since 2015, Dr. Nobles has led the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT. Her current research is focused on building a database of racial killings in the U.S. South, from 1930 to 1954, an archival project developed with the Northeastern University Law School’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice law clinic.
Devin Byrd Named the Sixth President of Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington
Dr. Byrd has been serving as vice president of academic affairs and chief academic advisor at Saybrook University in Pasadena, California. Earlier, he was a member of the psychology faculty at the University of South Carolina and then held several positions - including dean for the College of Health Professions - at South University in Savannah, Georgia.
Three African American Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions
Rodney Lyn has been appointed dean of the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Kimberly Jacob Arriola has been appointed dean of the Laney Graduate School at Emory University in Atlanta and Robert Williams was appointed dean of the College of Education and Allied Studies at California State University, East Bay.
Dione Somerville is the New President of Owens Community College in Perrysburg, Ohio
Dr. Somerville has held leadership positions at Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine, Lorain County Community College, Iowa State University, Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, and most recently Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was executive vice president.
Contra Costa Community College in California Appoints Tia Robinson-Cooper as President
Dr. Robinson most recently served as the provost and vice-president of academic affairs/chief academic officer at Inver Hills Community College, a campus of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.
Three African American Women Appointed to Dean Posts at Colleges and Universities
Gwenda Richburg Greene is the founding dean of Graduate Studies, Continuing Education, and Integrative Learning at Voorhees College. Henrietta Williams Pichon was named interim dean College of Health, Education and Social Transformation at New Mexico State University, and Versie Johnson-Mallard was named dean of the College of Nursing at Kent State University.
Kimberly Ballard-Washington Is the New President of Savannah State University in Georgia
Kimberly Ballard-Washington has served as interim president since July 2019. Earlier, she was associate vice chancellor for legal affairs for the University System of Georgia and is the former associate director of legal affairs for the flagship campus of the University of Georgia in Athens.
The Yale School of Art Has Selected Kymberly Pinder as Its New Leader
Kymberly Pinder, an internationally recognized scholar of race, representation, and murals, has been serving as acting president of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Earlier, she was dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico and a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Temple University in Philadelphia Names Jason Wingard as Its Next President
In 2015, Dr. Wingard was appointed dean of the School of Continuing Education at Columbia University in New York City. He also held the rank of professor at the school. Previously, Dr. Wingard was the chief learning officer at Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment firm.
Leroy Hamilton Jr. Named Provost at Kentucky State University
In addition to his role as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kentucky State, Dr. Hamilton will also serve as a professor in the School of Education, Human Development, and the Consumer Sciences. He has been serving as special assistant to the president at Norfolk State University in Virginia.
Selwyn M. Vickers Is the New President of the American Surgical Association
In 1994, Dr. Vickers joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as an assistant professor in the department of surgery. After serving as an endowed professor at the University of Minnesota from 2006 to 2013, he returned to Alabama to take the position of dean of the medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Linda Thompson Will Be the Twenty-First President of Westfield State University in Massachusetts
Dr. Thompson has served as dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 2017 and previously held a similar position at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Earlier, she served as provost and vice-chancellor at historically Black North Carolina A&T State University and dean of nursing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
Lesia L. Crumpton-Young Selected as the Next President of Texas Southern University
Since 2019, Dr. Crumpton-Youung has served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She also was a tenured full professor inf the department of industrial and systems engineering in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. School of Engineering.
Three Universities Appoint Black Scholars to Provost Positions
Francine Conway will be chancellor-provost of the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey. John D. Jones is the new provost and vice president of academic affairs at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Melissa L. Gilliam has been appointed executive vice president and provost at Ohio State University.
A Trio of African Americans Who Have Been Appointed to University Dean Positions
Gene Andrew Jarrett was appointed dean of the faculty at Princeton University in New Jersey. Debra J. Barksdale will be the next dean of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Keith A. Alford will become dean of the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work.
Christine Holt Selected to Be the Next Chancellor of the University of Arkansas, Hope-Texarkana
Dr. Holt currently serves as chief of staff for the University of Missouri System. She previously served as associate provost at the University of Missouri at Columbia and dean of academic administration at Northern Virginia Community College.
