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HBCU President: Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays – Past President of Morehouse College

Leshell Hatley — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:32:15 +0000

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays
(1894 – 1984)

“I’ve only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give an account if I abuse it,
Just a tiny little minute, But eternity is in it.”

-Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays

Benjamin Elijah Mays was born in Epworth, South Carolina, August 1, 1894, to S. Hezekiah and Louvenia (Carter) Mays. Benjamin was baptized, licensed to preach and ordained to the Christian Ministry at the Mount Zion Baptist Church.

Education
He attended the high school of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, completing the course in three years and graduating as class valedictorian in 1916. His freshman year of college was spent at Virginia Union University. He went North to Bates College in Maine, in September of 1917, and on January 3, 1921 he arrived at the University of Chicago, for graduate study.

Budding Career
While in Chicago, Mays served as a student assistant to Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams, pastor of historic Olivet Baptist Church and President of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. At Bates the young man was a leading campus figure, scholastically as well as in extracurricular activities. He was an honor student (Bates College elected him to Phi Beta Kappa in 1935) and served as president of the debating council, Bates Forum, and the Phil-Hellenic Club; he was also a member of the YMCA cabinet and a star intercollegiate debater. After receiving his B.A. degree in 1920 he prepared for the church and was ordained a Baptist minister two years later.

His pastorate at the Shiloh Baptist Church of Atlanta was close to Morehouse College where he was recruited by President John Hope to teach higher mathematics and coach the debate team until 1924. His star debaters were Howard Thurman, James Madison Nabrit,Jr., and Brailsford Brazeal. The following year, 1925, he received his M.A. degree from the University of Chicago after completing his thesis on “Pagan Survivals in Christianity.” Also, in this same year he became an instructor of English at South Carolina State College.

(Story begins at marker 0:54)

Family
His first wife was the late Ellen Harvin, to whom he was engaged during his four years in college. They married in 1920. She was a supervisor of Negro rural schools in Clarendon county, South Carolina. She died early in 1923 following an operation in an Atlanta hospital.

On August 9, 1926, he was married to Sadie Gray, a teacher and social worker, who had also received her M.A. from the University of Chicago. The couple worked together wherever Dr. Mays’ work took them. In 1926 he was appointed executive secretary of the Tampa (Florida) Urban League. After two years at this post he became National Student Secretary of the YMCA.

Author
From 1930 until 1932 he directed a study of the Negro churches in the United States under the auspices of the Institute of Social and Religious Research in New York City. Out of this work grew his book The Negro’s Church, written in collaboration with Joseph W. Nicholson and published in 1933. This volume is an exhaustive sociological survey of the Negro church in America, based on a firsthand study of 609 urban and 185 rural churches in twelve cities and four rural areas. Carefully documented, the book treats various aspects of the Negro church with scholarly thoroughness. In later years Mays discussed this subject in magazine articles. This volume stood unrivaled for 35 years.

@Howard University School of Religion
The educator’s next position took him to Washington, D.C., where he became dean of the Howard University School of Religion in 1934 at the invitation of his friend and mentor, President Mordecai Wyatt Johnson a member of the Morehouse College Class of 1911. In 1935 the Reverend Mr. Mays was awarded his Ph.D. degree by the University of Chicago. His dissertation was titled, “The Idea of God in Contemporary Negro Literature.”

During his six-year administration the Howard University School of Religion attracted national attention and was rated Class A by the American Association of Theological Schools. During this period Mays represented the United States at various world conferences.

With Mohandas K. Gandhi
In 1937, with twelve other Americans, he attended the World Conference of the UMCA in Mysore, India, at which time he had a private conference with Mohandas K. Gandhi on nonviolence. This meeting was urged by Howard Thurman, who had earlier met with Gandhi and was convinced of the relevance of nonviolence as the method to end American segregation. That year he was also present as America’s delegate at the Oxford Conference on the Church, Community and State at Oxford University, Oxford England.

In the course of these years of travel Mays’ opportunity to observe foreign countries and peoples was extensive: in 1937 he and his wife traveled in England, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland and France. Two years later he again represented the YMCA, this time at the Plenary Session of the World Committee in Stockholm. That same year he was a leader at the Youth Conference in Amsterdam.

Becoming President of Morehouse College
Mays became president of Morehouse college July 1st, 1940, upon the unchallenged recommendation of Charles Dubois Hubert. Upon his arrival, Dr. Mays described the nature of his dedication to the task ahead of him, by saying, “I intend to draw more than my salary and my breath.”

This same year, the Rev. Dr. D.V. Jemison was elected president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. in both national and international ecumenical assemblies, and helped bring additional world renown to Mays, Morehouse, and the Convention.

About Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a fully accredited liberal arts college for African American men. Rated Class A by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; Morehouse is the alma mater of many leading Blacks of the Nation. During Mays’ wartime presidency, a period of difficulty for all colleges, the school’s enrollment remained satisfactory because he had the foresight to create an early recruitment program in which high schoolers were admitted to the College at the end of their 10th grade year. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of many early admittees in September of 1944 at the age of 15. Dr. Mays also increased the tuition which earned him the nickname from the students, “Buck Bennie.”

In his Tuesday morning chapel services, there was one hymn that Dr. Mays had the student body sing, at least once a week, called “Integer Vitae,” popularly known as “He Who Is Upright.” The words to the song were:

“He who is upright, kind, and free from error, Needs not the aid of arms or men to guard him; Safely he moves, a child guilty terrors, Strong in his virtues.
What though he journey o’er the burning desert, Or climb alone the dreadful, dangerous mountains, Or taste the waters of the framed Hydasped, God will attend him.”

In the 1945 spring issue of the Morehouse College Bulletin the president stated the school’s educational aims: “To improve the quality and quantity of our work to the end that our graduates will improve the quality of their leadership in their respective communities… We should strive to produce men superior in poise, social imagination, integrity, resourcefulness, and superior in possessing an all-embracing love for all peoples irrespective of race or color. The African American should see, he also said, that “his sufferings and his ills are fragmentary parts of the sufferings of all peoples in history from the dawn of man up to the present.”

Publications
Mays’ many writings include 19 chapters in books and 232 articles in such publications as the “Crisis”, “Christian Century”, “Journal of Negro Education”, (in which he was a contributing editor), “Missions”, “Woman’s Press”, and the “Morehouse College Bulletin”. He published nine books in his lifetime: “The Negro’s Church” (The first sociological study of the Black Church in America), “The Negro’s God” (The first volume on Black liberation theology in the United States), “Seeking to be Christian in Race Relations”, “A Gospel for the Social Awakening”, “The Christian in Race Relations” (pamphlet), “Disturbed About Man” (His only published volume of sermons), “Born to Rebel” (His social autobiography), “Lord, the People Have Driven Me On”, and “Quotable Quotes”. He published 1,871 articles in the National Edition of the Pittsburgh Courier Newspaper from 1946 to 1982.

Dr. Mays wrote over 800 unpublished addresses, lectures, eulogies and sermons. Articles by Mays also appeared in newspapers like the Tampa bulletin, The Norfolk Journal and Guide, and The Atlanta Constitution. Mays found time to publish in scholarly journals and popular magazines for the academy, church and society. Examples include: “The National Educational Outlook Among Negroes”, “The A.M.E. Zion Quarterly Review”, “Encyclopedia of Religion”, “Howard University Bulletin”, “Journal of Religious Thought”, “Highland”, “Religion in Life”, “Georgia Observer “, “The Pulpit”, “Church Social Worker”, “International Journal of Religious Education”, “Phylon”, “Woman’s Mission”, “The Methodist Woman”,”Prophetic Religion”, “Negro Digest”, “The Chicago Defender”, “Our World”, “Child Study”, “Presbyterian Survey”, “World Call”, “Presbyterian Life”, “The Y.W.C.A. Magazine”, “The Intercollegian”, “Wesley Quarterly”, “The Journal of Educational Sociology”, “The Atlantic Monthly”, “Saturday Review”, “Ebony”, “Together”, and “Teachers College Record”.

Service
In December 1944 Mays was elected vice-president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the first member of his race to hold that office; he serve with Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam. The distinguished educator belonged to several organizations, including the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the Southern Regional Council, the Commission on the Basis of a Just and Durable Peace, and the Commission on Christian Strategy for Post-War Planning. Mays was a member of three fraternities, Delta Sigma Rho, Delta Theta Chi, and Omega Psi Phi; and he was also a member of the national board of the YMCA

Well-Known Lecturer
A well-known lecturer, he was frequently called to speak before Southern white audiences, as well as African Americans, and he lectured at hundreds of colleges in the United States. Mays was, in 1944, named on the Schomburg Honor Roll of Race Relations as one of twelve Blacks who had done outstanding work in building better race relations in America. In the mid 1950′s he was cited by building better race relations in America. In the mid 1950′s he was cited by the Pittsburgh Courier as one of the twelve most powerful men in America.

Morehouse Legacy
During his 27 – year presidency at Morehouse College he brought a Phi Beta Kamma chapter to the school and built the Morehouse faculty to more than 50% Ph.D’s. Upon his retirement, the Morehouse College Trustees honored him by permitting Mays to choose his own successor. He chose and challenged his former faculty member and editor of his speeches and articles, a powerful fund raiser, and published author, Dr. Hugh Moris Gloster, a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Fulbright Ph.D., listed in the English Who’s Who, and Dean of faculty at Hampton University.

Born to Rebel: Autobiography
His social autobiography, Born to Rebel, sold more than 25,000 hard back copies. In 1954 at the Evanston Assembly of the World Council of churches he internationalized the Civil Rights Movement in his now famous address, “The Church and Racial Tensions”. The United States Congress voted unanimously in 1984 to recommend to President Ronald Reagan that the highest civilian medal of the United States be conferred on Dr. Mays. He received 55 honorary degrees in his lifetime, and his 56th degree posthumously, from Columbia University. Seven academic buildings and an Atlanta street are named in his honor.
For 12 years he was president of the Atlanta School Board following his Morehouse presidency. He was in six school board elections, but never campaigned a day in his life. During this time he presided peacefully over the desegregation of the Atlanta Public Schools. A portrait of him hangs in the South Carolina State House in Columbia, and a million dollar scholarship endowment has been established in his honor by the Board of Trustees of Morehouse College, in addition to two endowed Professorial chairs.

Mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
He has been hailed as the mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer and Samuel Woodrow Williams, three civil rights leaders, who were greatly influenced by Dr. Mays’ Tuesday Morning Sale Hall Chapel talks and his Howard University Deanship. For 27 years, Dr. Mays planted seeds of revolution in the minds of Morehouse men in the Sale Hall Chapel at Morehouse. And before a crowd of over 200,000 and world television coverage, he delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Morehouse College Campus, April 9, 1968. King chose Mays for this distinction. He received over 500 awards and honors in his lifetime, and died March 28th, 1984 lauded as the first citizen of Atlanta.

The funeral of Dr. Mays was held in the Martin Luther King Jr. International chapel on the Morehouse college campus before a capacity congregation over over 2500 persons. Among the eleven speakers were former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter and Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook, ’48, President of Dillard University, who delivered the eulogy. the Morehouse College Glee Club, under the direction of Dr. Wendell P. Whalum, sang “Ain’t Got Time to Die”, “The Impossible Dream,” and “Done Done, What You Told Me to Do.” Dr. Mays was buried in the Southview Cemetery next to his wife Sadie in a white Georgia marble crypt they both selected. Mrs. Mays passed October 11, 1969. Dr. and Mrs. Mays were reinterred on the Morehouse College campus May 21, 1995, on commencement weekend.

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Information from - http://benmays.spps.org/Biography_of_Benjamin_Elijah_Mays.html

Thanks to James Neal for inspiring this week’s feature!

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Thelma B. Thompson: University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:45:49 +0000

Thelma B. Thompson, Ph.D

Thelma B. Thompson, Ph.D., serves as the 13th president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES).

Education

She is a cum laude graduate of Howard University, and holds the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from that institution. At Howard, she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society and received the coveted Terminal Fellowship Award. In addition, Dr. Thompson holds a diploma from Bethlehem College in Jamaica, and a certificate from London University. Her research areas include British, American, and post-colonial literature of the African Diaspora, as well as higher education issues.

At the University of Maryland Eastern Shore

She is considered to be an expert in accountability and accreditations, and has demonstrated leadership excellence in her present position. At UMES, Dr. Thompson has led the charge to assess student learning. Over 20 programs have received initial accreditation because of her emphasis on quality. She realigned the university, creating a new School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. Graduate enrollment is the highest it has ever been and, so too is fundraising. U.S. News & World Report for the past three years has listed UMES as being in the top tier of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Recognition & Awards

Recently, Dr. Thompson was honored by the African American Golfer’s Digest as one of its “2009 Outstanding Leaders in Golf,” and she has been recognized as one of the “100 Most Important Blacks in Technology” by Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine. She received the 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award from Howard; was recognized by Essence magazine in 2005 as one of the “Women Who are Shaping the World;” was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 2004; and received the Governor’s award for innovative leadership in 2006.

Service

Dr. Thompson is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, and a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education. She chaired the Maryland Council of University System Presidents in 2007-08, and previously, was chair of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Council of Chief Executive Officers.

Public Speaker

Dr. Thompson is a highly sought after speaker and active educator on the international scene. Walter Sisulu University for Technology and Science in South Africa conferred upon her an honorary doctoral degree in literature and philosophy; and she was crowned as a Queen in Ghana as a result of her efforts to expand educational opportunity in the Volta region. Known also for her critical and creative writing, Dr. Thompson has published in various genres including non-fiction articles and short stories, and poetry. Her book on 17th-century metaphysical poetry explores her interest in the nexus of spirituality and social behavior.

The Golden Rule

Dr. Thompson lives by the Golden Rule and believes in character education that equips people for a life based in universally respected values. She is an optimist, a pragmatist, and an individual who has a deep conviction in the human potential for good.

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Information from – http://www.umes.edu/President/Default.aspx?id=218

Image from – http://www.umes.edu/PR/Article.aspx?id=29230

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Melvin N. Johnson: Tennessee State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:25:41 +0000

Dr. Melvin N. Johnson

Dr. Melvin N. Johnson was named the seventh president of Tennessee State University on March 10, 2005. He assumed leadership of TSU on June 1, 2005. He leads one of Tennessee’s most productive public research universities. Dr. Johnson brings to TSU an exceptionally wide range of experience, as well as valuable state and national perspectives on higher education issues and policies.

More About Tennessee State University

[HBCU Presidents] John Brown Watson (1869–1942): University of Arkansas Pine Bluff

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:45:23 +0000

John Brown Watson was president of Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (AM&N), now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), from 1928 until his death in 1942. Watson was a member of the first generation of black Americans born after the Civil War and representative of that demographic among his cohorts, identified as what Professor Willard B. Gatewood Jr. called “aristocrats of color.”

Early Life

Watson was born near Tyler, Texas, on December 28, 1869, to Crystal and Frank Watson; he was named for the antebellum abolitionist John Brown.

Education

Educated near his home, Watson passed the county teacher examination in 1887 and taught for two years. He entered Bishop College at Marshall, Texas, in 1891 at the seventh grade level and completed his high school diploma in 1898. After teaching for two more years, Watson entered Colgate University at Hamilton, New York, in the fall of 1900. He transferred to Brown University at Providence, Rhode Island, the following year and graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in the class of 1904. Mentored by John Hope, an 1894 graduate of Brown University and the first black president of Morehouse College and Atlanta University, Watson served as professor of mathematics and science at Morehouse College from 1904 to 1908.

Marriage

On September 25, 1907, he married Hattie Louise Rutherford, a graduate of Spelman College, of Rome, Georgia. Hattie Rutherford Watson was the elder daughter of freedman Samuel W. Rutherford, founder of the National Benefit Life Insurance Company, and Mary Anne Lemon Rutherford. In the spring of 1939, after almost thirty-two years of marriage, the Watsons adopted an infant daughter, Marian Anderson Watson, naming her after the famed contralto.

Career

In 1908, Watson left Morehouse College and, for twelve years, served as a secretary of the Colored Men’s Department of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). The organization’s appointment of Watson to an executive position represented a significant opportunity for his advancement to more visible careers. Watson, a graduate of an Ivy League institution and former faculty at Morehouse College, was a likely candidate for an administrative position in black higher education in the era of segregation. He also briefly served as liquidating agent for the Atlanta State Savings Bank and as state agent for the Southern Fire Insurance Company. In 1923, he assumed the administration of Leland College (American Baptist Home Mission Society) at Baker, Louisiana.

On June 1, 1928, the State Board of Education elected Watson as president of Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The state legislature and two philanthropic agencies appropriated funds and bought a thirty-five-acre site for the institution two miles from the center of Pine Bluff. Construction began in early 1929, and students and faculty moved in before Christmas of the same year. The new physical plant consisted of eight new buildings valued at almost $600,000. Watson’s inauguration as president in the spring of 1930, at which John Hope delivered the commemorative address, enabled simultaneous dedication of the new campus site as well.

Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College at Pine Bluff NOW University of Arkansas Pine Bluff (UAPB)

Despite the postponement of Watson’s installation ceremony, he founded and co-edited with his wife, Hattie Rutherford Watson, the college newspaper, The Arkansawyer, and the same name also christened the new college catalogue. In 1929, he attended the annual conference of the Presidents of Negro Land-Grant Colleges, the state’s first participation in more than a decade. Watson’s other initiatives included both intercollegiate athletics and an intramural sports program, debate and dramatic clubs, and free night classes for the local community. The college was reorganized with four divisions: Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Home Economics, and Education, including a training or practice school with both elementary and secondary grades.

Watson’s administration also coincided with the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. The college participated in the distribution of the college and graduate student funds by the Negro Division of the National Youth Administration (NYA). AM&N was the site of NYA Camp Bethune for unemployed young black women in 1937 and for unemployed young black men in 1940. In 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded a new library, two new dormitories, and eight brick faculty cottages.

AM&N College enrollment at the beginning of Watson’s tenure was thirty-six; the number of faculty and staff was thirty-two. At the time of United States’ entry into the World War II, the college enrolled almost 500 students, employed a faculty of sixty-six, and had a physical plant valued at nearly two million dollars.

Service

Watson maintained membership in several professional and private organizations, including the Association of Presidents of Negro Land-Grant Colleges, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Sigma Pi Phi, the Monday Club of Atlanta, the Brown University Alumni Association, and St. Paul Baptist Church at Pine Bluff.

End of Life

Watson died at his home on the AM&N College campus on December 6, 1942. A memorial ceremony was held at AM&N College, followed by funeral services at Sale Hall Chapel on the campus of Morehouse College. He is buried in Atlanta. The WPA library completed in 1939, Childress Hall, was dedicated and renamed in his honor in 1958; the current library, completed in 1968, is the Watson Memorial Library.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Reginald S. Avery: Coppin State University’s 5th President

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:55:08 +0000

Dr. Reginald S. Avery officially assumed the presidency of 108-year-old Coppin State University, on January 14, 2008. Dr. Avery, who was serving as Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of South Carolina Upstate, becomes Coppin’s fifth president, succeeding Dr. Stanley Battle who resigned last June to become Chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University. He brings more than 35-years of experience in higher education to Coppin State and vows a strong allegiance to its mission and a pledge to advance excellence and effectiveness.

Education

Dr. Avery holds a Ph.D. from the Florence Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, an M.S.W. from the George Williams College of Aurora University, and a B.S. in sociology from North Carolina A&T State University.

Career

Dr. Avery served as Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Professor at the University of South Carolina Upstate (USC) since 2003. In 2006-07, he served as the institution’s Acting Chancellor while the Chancellor was on sabbatical. Previously, he was Provost at Alma College in Michigan, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Kentucky State University and Founding Dean of the School of Professional Programs at Benedict College in South Carolina. He served on the faculty of the University of Tennessee and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. While holding leading posts at USC Upstate, Dr. Avery served on several boards, including those of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce, Urban League of the Upstate, and 100 Black Men.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Walther M. Kimbrough: Philander Smith College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:20:19 +0000

Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough is the 12th president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas. As the first college president from the hip-hop generation, he is one of the youngest college presidents in the nation. Prior to Philander Smith College, he served in administrative capacities at Albany State University, Old Dominion University, Georgia State University and Emory University.

Education

After graduating from the Benjamin E. Mays High School and Academy of Math and Science in Atlanta as the Salutatorian and Student Body President, Dr. Kimbrough earned a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Degree in biology from the University of Georgia in 1989. He continued his education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, completing a Master of Science Degree in College Student Personnel Services in 1991, and in 1996 he earned the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Higher Education from Georgia State University.

Service

Dr. Kimbrough has maintained active memberships in several higher education organizations, including the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), Association of Fraternity Advisors (AFA) and Brothers of the Academy (BOTA). He has served as a reviewer for the NASPA Journal, an associate editor for the College Student Affairs Journal, and a 2001 Senior Scholar for AFA.

Locally, he is a member of the board of directors for the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Heart of Arkansas United Way. He was named one of the people who made a difference in Arkansas in 2005 by the Arkansas Times newspaper, and named by Powerplaymagazine in 2006 as one of the 25 influential African Americans in Arkansas.

Fraternity Influence

Based on a strong fraternity experience, Dr. Kimbrough has forged a national reputation as an expert on historically Black fraternities and sororities. He has conducted interviews with national publications including the Washington Post and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He has also been a guest on the National Public Radio show, “Talk of the Nation.” Dr. Kimbrough has given over 350 presentations on Black Greek life at numerous campuses and conferences.

Author

He is the author of the book, Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities. After five months, the book was an Essence magazine top 10 best seller, and is currently in its eighth printing.

Dr. Kimbrough was the Alpha Phi Alpha College Brother of the Year for the Southern Region during the 1987-88 school year. He was named the 1994 New Professional of the Year for the Association of Fraternity Advisors, and the 1998 National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Dissertation of the Year award runner-up. He was selected as a 2001 Nissan-ETS HBCU Fellow, and a 2002 participant in the Millennium Leadership Initiative sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. In 2009, he was named by Diverse Issues in Higher Education as one of 25 To Watch.

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Information obtained from Philander Smith College website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. James Lowe, Jr. – Bishop State Community College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:09:57 +0000

Dr. James Lowe, Jr., was appointed president of Bishop State Community College on May 22, 2008 by the Alabama State Board of Education. A native of Phenix City, Alabama, he has a wealth of professional experiences, including service as a teacher, head football coach, athletic director, principal, and assistant superintendent. Dr. Lowe also served as an administrator with the Alabama State Department of Education prior to his employment with the Alabama Community College System.

Education

Dr. Lowe is a graduate of South Girard High School in Phenix City. He received a scholarship to Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education. He later earned a master’s degree in physical education and administration from The American University in Washington, D.C., an Educational Specialist degree in administrative supervision from Troy State University, and a doctorate in educational administration from San Francisco Technical University.

Career

In the Alabama Community College System, Dr. Lowe has served as Vice Chancellor of Instructional and Student Services and Vice Chancellor of College Operations in the Department of Postsecondary Education. In September 2003, he served as Interim President of Northwest-Shoals Community College, in January 2004, he served as Dean of Academic Instruction at Chattahoochee Valley Community College, and in August 2007, he was named Interim President of Bishop State Community College.

Service

A dedicated public servant, Dr. Lowe is actively involved in national, state, and local organizations. He is a member of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Education Association, Phi Delta Kappa, Rotary Club, and Council of Exceptional Children. Dr. Lowe also serves as Vice President of the Executive Committee for the Alabama Community College Conference and previously served on the Chattahoochee Valley Foundation Board of Directors. Vice President of the Executive Committee for the Alabama Community College Conference, he is a member of the Alabama Community College System Presidents’ Association, Alabama Association of School Administrators, Alabama Association of School Boards, and the American Red Cross Board of Directors.

Honors & Awards

Dr. Lowe is the recipient of numerous honors, awards, and citations. Most recently, he received a Resolution from the Alabama State Board of Education in recognition of his leadership of the Project Phoenix Team, which reestablished the academic, financial, and moral stability of Bishop State Community College. Other citations include a Resolution by the State of Georgia for his outstanding services to Chattahoochee Valley Community College and a certificate from the President’s Club of the Chattahoochee Valley Community College Foundation.

Dr. Lowe expects Bishop State graduates to be fully prepared for the world after college. “I tell our students that their success starts here. If they work hard at succeeding, anything is possible.”

You can read more about Dr. James Lowe, Jr. in his biography.

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From the Bishop State Community College website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Mervyn Warren – Interim President, Oakwood University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:35:31 +0000

Dr. Mervyn A. Warren is the interim President at Oakwood University.

Education

A graduate of Oakwood, he attended the seminary of Andrews University (M.A. and M.Div.). His Ph.D. is from Michigan State University, and he also has a D.Min. from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Dr. Warren is also the author of God Made Known and Black Preaching, Truth and Soul.

Dr. Warren is the father of Mervyn Edwin Warren, an American film composer, music conductor, record producer, music arranger, lyricist, songwriter, pianist, vocalist, and 5-time Grammy Award winner.

About Oakwood University

Oakwood University, a historically Black Seventh-day Adventist institution of higher learning, provides quality Christian education that emphasizes academic excellence; promotes harmonious development of mind, body, and spirit; and prepares leaders in service for God and humanity. A group of College constituents made the decision on December 2, 2007 to change the school’s name from Oakwood College to Oakwood University, effective January 1, 2008

Oakwood University

To learn more about Oakwood University, please visit http://www.oakwood.edu and their video channel, http://vimeo.com/oakwooduni.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Ray L. Belton: Southern University at ShrevePort

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:08:32 +0000

Title: Chancellor Academic Division: Behavioral Sciences and Education Education: A.S., Southern University at Shreveport B.S., Southern University M.A., University of Nebraska Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin Year started teaching at SUSLA: 1987 We couldn't find much more information about h... Read more.. Related posts:

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Michelle Howard-Vital, Cheney University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:29:41 +0000

Dr. Michelle R. Howard-Vital is the Pesident of Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the very first HBCU (Historically Black College/University).

“Dr. Howard-Vital has had a long, distinguished career in higher education,” said Board of Governors Chairman Kenneth M. Jarin. “The experience she brings to Cheyney will be invaluable as she prepares to lead the University into the future.”

Dr. Howard-Vital was named interim chancellor at Winston-Salem in July 2006. Previously, she was associate vice president for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She also spent two years at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, as dean of University College and associate vice president for academic programs. She began her academic career in 1975 as an English instructor at Central YMCA Community College in Chicago.

PASSHE Chancellor Dr. Judy G. Hample also cited Dr. Howard-Vital’s varied experiences as a teacher and administrator, calling her “a talented leader who will serve both Cheyney University and the Commonwealth well.”

“With 30 years in higher education, Dr. Howard-Vital is well-suited to lead America’s oldest historically black institution of higher education,” said Robert W. Bogle, chairman of Cheyney University ’s Council of Trustees. “Her academic experience and distinguished service to education make her ideal to guide Cheyney University into the future.”

Dr. Howard-Vital said she is looking forward to assuming the Cheyney presidency, promising to “roll up my sleeves and get to work ASAP.”

“I look forward to working with the faculty, staff and students to support the teaching-learning environment at Cheyney University,” she said.

As interim chancellor at Winston-Salem State, Dr. Howard-Vital is responsible for providing overall leadership to the 5,600-student public university. She also assists in economic development efforts in the region by serving as the University’s representative on numerous county and city organizations.

Education

Dr. Howard-Vital earned both a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in English education from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Teaching & Leadership

While at Central YMCA Community College, Dr. Howard-Vital taught courses in composition, rhetoric, research writing and black literature. She also served as the college’s coordinator of prior learning and director of the College Without Walls program during her six-year tenure. She was named project coordinator of the early outreach program at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1981, a position she held for three years.

Dr. Howard-Vital was named dean of adult and continuing education of Loop College, now Harold Washington College, in Chicago in 1984, and, two years later, dean of continuing education and non-traditional programs at Chicago State University. She also served as an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction during her four years at Chicago State.

She moved to Edinboro University in 1991, spending two years there before being named vice chancellor for public service and continuing studies and associate provost at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a position she remained in for 10 years. In that position she designed numerous non-credit, instructional programs and corporate training programs to meet specific community needs. She also led the Digital Communities Project, an experiment in international distance education with Japanese universities.

As an associate vice president at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Howard-Vital provided leadership for postsecondary, nonpublic institutions seeking licensure to offer degree programs in North Carolina. She also coordinated the review of undergraduate degree programs at 16 University of North Carolina campuses and served as the state coordinator for the Academic Common Market program. She served as the liaison for K-16 efforts as a member of the North Carolina State Board of Education and reviewed doctoral programs in appropriate disciplines.

Publications & Grants

Dr. Howard-Vital has participated in state, regional and national meetings and conferences and has published dozens of articles primarily related to teaching and learning. She served as the principal or co-principal investigator on numerous grants while at UNC-Wilmington, and, in 2001, received the Million Dollar Club award for bringing in more than $1 million in grants to the University.

Service

She is a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, Association of Black Women in Higher Education, American Association of Higher Education and the National University Continuing Education Association. She also serves on the Specialty Studies Board of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). She has served on such civic and community organizations as the Cape Fear American Red Cross.

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Information from http://www.cheyneyfoundation.org/howardvital.html

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Julianna Malveau: Bennet College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:19:33 +0000

Dr. Julianne Malveaux is the 15th President of Bennett College for Women. Recognized for her progressive and insightful observations, she is also an economist, author and commentator, and has been described by Dr. Cornel West as “the most iconoclastic public intellectual in the country.” Dr. Malveaux’s contributions to the public dialogue on issues such as race, culture, gender, and their economic impacts, are shaping public opinion in 21st century America.

Education

Julianne Malveaux has been a contributor to academic life since receiving her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1980. She holds honorary degrees from Sojourner Douglas College (Baltimore, Maryland), Marygrove College (Detroit, Michigan), the University of the District of Columbia, and Benedict College (Columbia, South Carolina). She received her undergraduate education, as well as a master’s degree, in economics at Boston College.

She has been on the faculty or visiting faculty of the New School for Social Research, San Francisco State University, the University of California (Berkeley), the College of Notre Dame (San Mateo, California), Michigan State University and Howard University. She has also lectured at more than 500 colleges or universities.

Author

Malveaux is an accomplished author and editor. Her academic work is included in numerous anthologies and journals. She is the editor of Voices of Vision: African American Women on the Issues (1996); the co-editor of Slipping Through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women (1986); and co-editor of The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terrorism (2002). She is the author of two column anthologies: Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist (1994); and Wall Street, Main Street, and the Side Street: A Mad Economist Takes a Stroll (1999). She is most recently the co-author of Unfinished Business: A Democrat and A Republican Take on the 10 Most Important Issues Women Face (2002).

Malveaux’s popular writing has appeared in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms. Magazine, Essence Magazine, and the Progressive. Indeed, Malveaux was Essence Magazine’s first college editor, having been selected in 1970 by Marcia Ann Gillespie for her winning essay, Black Love is a Bitter/Sweetness. Her weekly columns appeared for more than a decade (1990-2003) in newspapers across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Charlotte Observer, the New Orleans Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, and the San Francisco Examiner.

Well-known for appearances on national network programs, Malveaux has hosted television and radio programs, and appeared widely as a commentator, on networks including CNN, BET, PBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN and others.

Service

A committed activist and civic leader, Dr. Malveaux has held positions in women’s, civil rights, and policy organizations. She was President of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs from 1995-1999, and is currently Honorary Co-Chair of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Currently, Malveaux serves on the boards of the Economic Policy Institute, The Recreation Wish List Committee of Washington, DC, and the Liberian Education Trust.

A native San Franciscan, she is the Founder and Thought Leader of Last Word Productions, Inc. a multimedia production company headquartered in Washington, DC.

More information can be found at http://www.juliannemalveaux.com.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Helen T. McAlpine: J.F. Drake State Technical College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:14:50 +0000

On October 26, 2000, the Alabama State Board of Education approved the recommendation of Dr. Fred Gainous, Chancellor of the Alabama College System, for the appointment of Dr. Helen T. McAlpine as the third President of J.F. Drake State Technical College. She also made institutional history by becoming the first female President of the college.

Education

McAlpine received her bachelor’s degree from Talladega College, her master’s degree from Jacksonville State University and her doctorate from the University of Alabama.

Career

McAlpine has over 30 years of experience in the field of education. Her prior positions include Assistant Superintendent of the Huntsville City School System and several positions with the Gadsden City School System. Her teaching experience has allowed her to work in the classrooms at secondary and post-secondary levels, including Jacksonville State University.

Awards

She has received numerous awards including the 1998 “She Knows Where She is Going Award” from Girls Incorporated, Inc., the 1997 Martin Luther King, Jr. Unity Award from the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the 1997 UNCF Award from Oakwood College, the 1993 Outstanding Educator Award presented by the Twenty Distinguished Young Men of America, Huntsville Chapter, and the 1992 Outstanding Research Award by the Alabama Association for Counseling and Development.

Service

McAlpine’s professional affiliations include past chair of the American Association of School Administrators (1999-2000) and president of the Alabama Counseling Association (1990-91). She has also been a member of the National Education Association, Alabama Education Association, Huntsville Education Association, National Association of Secondary School Principals, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the Alabama Association for Counselors and Supervisors, the Alabama Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development, and the Alabama School Counselors Association.

McAlpine serves the community through her membership with various civic organizations. Some of her memberships include the Greater Huntsville Rotary Club, Partnership for a Drug-Free Community, Inc., New Futures, Alabama 4-H Foundation, Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, Coalition on at Risk Minority Males (COARMM), and the Volunteers of America. She is also the President of the Huntsville Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and is a 1990-91 graduate of the Huntsville/Madison County Leadership Class.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Andrew Hugine: Alabama A&M University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:25:07 +0000

Dr. Andrew Hugine, Jr., joined the Alabama A&M University family on Thursday, July 16, 2009, following an extensive career in higher education that highlighted both academia and administration.

Education

Hugine earned the Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from South Carolina State University, followed by the Master of Education degree in mathematics from the same institution. He went on to complete studies leading toward the Doctor of Philosophy degree in higher education & institutional research from Michigan State University.

Career

His lengthy and productive career began as an instructor at Beaufort High School in Beaufort, S.C., from 1971-72. He returned to serve his Alma Mater for three years in the capacities of director of the Special Services Program (1972- 73) and director of the University Year for Action Program (1972-75).

While pursuing his doctoral studies, Hugine concurrently served as a teaching assistant (1975-76) and later as an institutional research analyst/assistant professor (1976-78) at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich.

Hugine returned again to South Carolina State University and nobly served in the following positions: Research Fellow, 1978-79; Assistant Director of the Self-Study, 1978-79; Director of the Institutional Self-Study, 1979-80; Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, 1980-86; Professor of Mathematics, 1986-2003; and Interim Executive Vice President (2002-03), a position that thrusted him into service as the Chief Operating Officer for the university.

From 2003-08, Dr. Hugine culminated his 30-year affiliation with South Carolina State University as its President. During his brief but productive administration, he was credited with the construction of a major residence facility and the preparations for a massive complex to house the University’s new School of Engineering. Hugine also began a number of renovations to the dining facility, the administration building, the science building and other facilities.

A major highlight of Hugine’s administration at SCSU was the acquisition by the institution of the first debate of the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Debate Series at the campus’ Martin Luther King Auditorium. The event also marked the first such distinction by a historically black college or university.

As the 11th President of historic, land-grant Alabama A&M University, Hugine joins a distinguished group of ten previous leaders and four interim administrators who have served in the coveted post since its founding in 1875.

More information about Dr. Hugine and Alabama A&M University can be found on the university’s website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Beverly Wade Hogan: Tougaloo College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:33:04 +0000

In May 2002, the Tougaloo College Board of Trustees named Dr. Beverly Wade Hogan, a former trustee and College administrator, the 13th President of the College.

Education

President Hogan holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Tougaloo College and a master’s in public policy and administration from Jackson State University. She was conferred the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Wiley College. She has done additional studies at the University of Southern Mississippi, University of Georgia and St. Mary College. She is presently pursuing the doctorate in organizational management and leadership. To complement her formal education, President Hogan has received certificates of training in leadership development, organizational management, policy development, health and human resources management, alcohol and drug studies, urban development and administrative law.

Career

President Hogan comes to the presidency with more than twenty-five years of experience in executive management and leadership. Prior to becoming President, she had served as the College’s Interim President, founding Director of the Owens Health, Wellness & Human Resources Center, Executive Assistant to the President and Vice President for Institutional Advancement. She also served for ten years as the Commissioner for the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission, four years as the Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Federal State Programs, nine years as the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association in Hinds County and the State of Mississippi, respectively. She has been an adjunct instructor in public policy at Jackson State University and a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University. Additionally, she has been involved with employment and educational training programs in Denmark, Sweden and West Germany in affiliation with the German Marshall Fund. She has been a scholar with the Kettering Foundation where her research focus was Higher Education and Civic Responsibility. President Hogan has been a participant and presenter in the Oxford Roundtable at Oxford University in Oxford, England.

While at Tougaloo

Throughout President Hogan’s distinguished career, she is credited with pioneering programs that improved the quality of life for many citizens, including, but not limited to, the founder of the first psychiatric halfway house in Mississippi, establishing the first rape crisis center and shelter for battered women, and initiating the State’s Self Employment Demonstration Project to reduce welfare dependency and the Rental Rehabilitation and Low Income Tax Credit Programs to increase the availability of housing for low income families. She has received extensive recognition for her trailblazing contributions, and remains active on various boards and commissions in her continuing commitment to give of her talents and resources for the betterment of society and a generation yet unborn.

Tougaloo’s Future

President Hogan’s aim is to build upon Tougaloo College’s deep and strong legacy of academic excellence and social commitment while advancing the institution toward a legacy of fiscal responsibility to ensure that it will stand and prosper.

More information about Tougaloo College can be found here: http://www.tougaloo.edu.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Norris Edney (Interim President): Alcorn State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:29:04 +0000

Dr. Norris Edney was appointed interim president of Alcorn State University on January 21, 2010, by the Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning. Dr. Edney spent most of his career at Alcorn in various roles of teaching and administration. He is knowledgeable about the university and is well-respected among faculty and staff.

Time At Alcorn State

Dr. Edney started to work for Alcorn as biology instructor in 1963 and worked his way up to senior leadership positions. Throughout his career, he has served the University in various capacities including dean of Graduate Studies, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and chairman of the Department of Biology. He also worked as director for the Natchez Nursing Program from initiation of the program thru the second accreditation cycle.

Dr. Edney’s extensive managerial experience also includes serving as the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) president, and Natchez – Adams County School Board president. Among his areas of expertise are: administration and supervision in higher education; environmental science; ecology; systematic botany; improving the quality of teaching science in elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate schools.

Education

Dr. Edney has an associates degree from Natchez Junior College, an undergraduate degree in biology from Tougaloo College, a master of science teaching degree from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Co., and a doctorate degree in conservation from Michigan State University.

Service & Accomplishments

Throughout his career, Dr. Edney authored 32 publications. His numerous professional accomplishments and awards include receiving First Annual White House Initiative Faculty Award for Excellence in Science and Technology; National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) Research Scientist of the Year Achievement Award; Natchez Junior College 1990 Alumni of the Year; Award of Merit-National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Service Eligibility Chairman; Outstanding Service Award, Alcorn State University, Department of Biology; and SWAC Distinguished Service Award. He is listed in Who’s Who in Ecology and in American Men of Science. Dr. Edney was inducted into SWAC Hall of Fame, received Distinguished Service Award, Capital City Classic, Inc., Outstanding Agriculture Researcher, Alcorn State University; and SWAC Lifetime Achievement Award.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. David Holmes Swinton: Benedict College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:23:45 +0000

Dr. David Holmes Swinton is the 13^th president of Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. As president, Dr. Swinton oversees all areas and departments of the 139-year-old Institution with student enrollment that exceeds 2,800.

Early Life

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Dr. Swinton moved with his family to Timmonsville, South Carolina at an early age where he attended the Brockington School. He moved to New York City at 12 years of age and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn.

Education

In 1968, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from New York University; in 1971, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Harvard University; and in 1975 he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics from Harvard University.

Career

Dr. Swinton is recognized for his academic achievements, his intellectual excellence, and his devotion to higher education. Dr. Swinton’s professional experience includes seven-year tenure as Dean of the School of Business at Jackson State University where he led the successful effort to gain AACSB accreditation for the Business School. Prior to his appointment at Jackson State, he was Director of the Southern Center of Studies in Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Author

Dr. Swinton is renowned for his scholarly writings; most notably his analysis of the economic status of African Americans, which has been published in the National Urban League’s The State of Black America. His works have also been published in such professional journals as the American Economics Review, The Review of Black Political Economy, Minority Youth Employment, Public Administration Review, Journal of Urban Analysis, and Business and Society. In 2005, Dr. Swinton’s received the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award by the National Economic Association of African American Economist. The award is presented to African-American economists who have an outstanding record in the economics profession, institutional leadership and service to the community. In 2007, Dr. Swinton was inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame.

In 1998, Dr. Swinton became the first African-American Chairman of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce Board in the organization’s 92-year history. In 1999, Dr. Swinton helped organize a group of 50 investors to create South Carolina Community Bank, to preserve the only minority-owned bank in South Carolina. Dr. Swinton has served as Economic Advisor to the National Urban League since 1980, and has been a member of Black Enterprise Magazine’s Board of Economists since 1990. His honors and awards include Phi Beta Kappa, Coat of Arms Society, and Honors in Economics from New York University, Ford Foundation Fellow, Graduate Prize Fellowship from Harvard, the Order of the Palmetto, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for the University of Bridgeport. Recently, he received the Luther Wesley Smith Award for distinguished service in strengthening college or seminary programs.

For more information, visit http://www.benedict.edu.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Eddie N. Moore: Virginia State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:01:01 +0000

Eddie N. Moore, Jr. assumed his position as the 12th President of the Virginia State University, bringing a wealth of administrative and fiscal management experience gained both in public and private sectors. Upon his arrival, he found the university that overlooks the Appomattox River in Ettrick, Virginia was in need of “love and care.” Basic maintenance was required in dozens of buildings, along with improved academic programs and new facilities.

Education

Moore earned his B.S. in accounting from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, and completed his M.B.A. degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 2001. He has received Distinguished Alumnus awards from both institutions.

Moore currently sits on the board of Universal Corp. and Owens and Minor, Inc. Having served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant, Moore is a Vietnam veteran and received the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious achievement.

At VSU

Moore, who joined VSU after serving as state treasurer of Virginia, knew the work in front of him and tackled his mission with zeal. He surrounded himself with a team of new leaders and established a strategic agenda. “I believe in stretch goals,” he says, describing his short list of objectives that focused on academics, faculty, university scholarship and physical structure. Moore’s strategy was not only to save the university, but also prepare it for the future.

Under Moore’s leadership, VSU now enrolls more than five thousand students and has completed more than $100 million in capital improvements to its 236-acre main campus. The student dining hall, student union, athletic stadium and auditorium have been renovated, and the business school has a three-story addition. Other new completions include Gateway, a residential facility with several classrooms, an engineering and science building, and University Apartments at Ettrick.

VSU also has expanded or added academic programs in engineering, computer science, criminal justice, and mass media. New advanced degree programs include a doctoral degree in “Educational Administration & Supervision” and in “Psychology.” In 2007 and 2008, U.S. News & World Report named VSU the top public historically black college in the country among masters-level institutions.

The 2007-2008 operating budget for VSU was $125 million. Moore traces his fiscally conscious management to working in his father’s fish market as a youth.

“I learned all of my business acumen from my dad,” he says. “The numbers (in arithmetic) came relatively easy for me.” He offers the same advice to students, telling them to “make sure you have all the resources you need and be willing to take risks.”

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Hazo W. Carter Jr: West Virginia State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:03:37 +0000

Dr. Hazo W. Carter, Jr. began his service as West Virginia State College’s ninth president in 1987. He became the first President of West Virginia State University on April 7, 2004. For 25 years he has been a chief executive officer at a higher education institution. Prior to coming to West Virginia, Dr. Carter was President and Professor of Education at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas.

West Virginia State University was founded as a historically Black public college but now has a student body of 90% White.

Education

President Carter holds the B.S. Degree in English from Tennessee State University (in Nashville); the M.S. Degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana); and the Doctor of Education Degree (Ed.D.) in Higher Education Administration from George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Tenure at West Virginia State

Throughout his tenure at West Virginia State, he has worked tirelessly to articulate the institution’s economic impact and presence as the largest institution of higher education in the Kanawha Valley. President Carter successfully led a 12-year quest to regain the institution’s 1890 land-grant status. He successfully encouraged local community leaders, legislators, and alumni to support our journey to have our land-grant status restored at the State level and recognized and funded at the federal level.

As an 1890 land-grant institution, the University holds membership in the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). Dr. Carter has served as member of the Council of 1890 Presidents and Chancellors since 1995, and he was selected by his peers as Chair-elect in November 2006. He assumed this position in November 2007. As Chair of the Council, Dr. Carter serves on the NASULGC Board of Directors. He is a founding member of the West Virginia Association of Land-Grant Institutions, a cooperative venture between WVSU and West Virginia University.

Following a resolution by the National Alumni Association in 2000, Dr. Carter provided the leadership that resulted in West Virginia State College being designated as West Virginia State University. On April 7, 2004, Governor Bob Wise signed the bill that officially changed the institution’s status to that of university.

Service

President Carter is also an active participant on various local boards. He is a member of the boards of directors of: Advantage Valley, where he is also a member of the Education Committee and Task Force on Workforce Development; Chemical Alliance Zone; United Way of Central West Virginia; College Summit; and, the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference where he served as president (2000-2002) and currently serves as Treasurer and Chair of their Budget Committee. He is also a member of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation Board of Trustees. Additionally, Dr. Carter is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. West Virginia Holiday Commission (initially appointed in 1988) and has served as Chair of the Commission since 1998.

On the national level, Dr. Carter is a member of the White House Initiative’s Board of Advisors for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which is comprised of 21 members from 15 states. He served a three-year term (2001-2004) on the Board of Directors of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), where he also served on the Executive Committee (2003-2004). In November 2004, he was appointed to AASCU’s Commission on Public University Renewal. Dr. Carter was appointed to AASCUs Committee on Policies and Purposes in November 2006.

He is chairman of the boards of the University’s Research and Development Corporation; the Metro Area Agency on Aging; and, he is a member of the Executive Committee of the West Virginia State University Foundation, Inc. His other memberships include the Central West Virginia Convention and Visitors Bureau, Saint Albans Rotary Club and the Advisory Committee of United Bank-Dunbar.

Previous Career & Service

Dr. Carter was a member of the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce and Development for more than a decade and served as chairman of the Education Committee for four years. Throughout his association with this organization he has served as Vice Chair of their Board of Directors (2003) and was elected as Chair in January 2004; the organization merged with the Charleston Renaissance and BIDCO in the summer of 2004. Consequently, Dr. Carter is a member of the Board of Directors of the Charleston Area Alliance as well as its Education Committee.

Dr. Carter’s former Board memberships include: the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University Alumni Association (1992-1998), serving as president from 1996-97; Saint Francis Hospital (1998-2002); Division II representative on the Presidents Council for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (1998-2003); the Salvation Army (1999-2002); Dunbar Rotary Club; the Business and Industrial Development Corporation; HospiceCare Foundation of West Virginia (2001-2002); and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities where he served on their Executive Committee (2001-2004).

Honors & Awards

President Carter has received many awards and accolades in recognition of his distinguished service. Among the most cherished are: “Distinguished West Virginian” awards by former Governors Gaston Caperton and Bob Wise; “Honorary West Virginian” awarded by Governor Joe Manchin; designation as “President of the Century” by the West Virginia State College (University) National Alumni Association during their biennial conference in 2000 in recognition of his success to regain land-grant status. His alma mater, Tennessee State University, also presented him with its highest achievement award in recognition of his outstanding service and accomplishments in the field of education. In January 2007, he was he was honored by the House of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature and recognized for his contributions and service to West Virginia State University, the Kanawha Valley and the State of West Virginia. The House further expressed its sincere gratitude for his tireless efforts to articulate the institution’s economic impact and presence as the largest institution of higher education in the Kanawha Valley.

Dr. Hazo W. Carter, Jr. is the son of Dr. Hazo W. Carter, Sr.

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Information courtesy of WVSU’s website and wikipedia.

[HBCU Presidents] Michael J. Sorrell: Paul Quinn College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:42:33 +0000

Michael J. Sorrell is the 34th President of Paul Quinn College. Under his leadership, the school has embarked upon an aggressive agenda that stresses academic excellence, accountability and a commitment to student services. His vision is to create a nationally renowned institution of higher education that produces Quinnites with enlightened minds, passionate spirits and the capacity to lead in the global marketplace.

Accomplishments thus far…

Among his accomplishments during his short tenure at the college are the following: revamping the admissions policy; establishing the Presidential Scholars Program; adopting a school-wide business casual dress code; overhauling the admissions, finance, academic affairs, athletic, maintenance and development offices, modernizing the institutions operations and the creation of partnerships with Home Depot, Balfour Beatty and Habitat for Humanity.

Before Paul Quinn (Career)

Michael came to PQC from his post as the co-founder and Chief Problem Solver of Victor Credo, LLC where he represented athletes, coaches and other sports related organizations.Michael has spent the majority of his career advising key decision-makers at all levels of sports, Fortune 500 companies and government entities. His unique experiences include having served as the Director of Communications and Government Relations for Dallas 2012, Executive Director of the Global Games, and an assignment in the White House, as the Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the President’s Initiative on Race.

Education

Michael received his J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University. While in law school, he was one of the founding members of the Journal of Gender Law & Policy and served as the Vice President of the Duke Bar Association. Michael was a recipient of the Sloan Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which funded his studies at both Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (as a graduate fellow) and Duke University. He graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Government, where he was voted Secretary-Treasurer of his senior class and was a two-time captain of the men’s varsity basketball team.

Service

Michael sits on numerous boards and committees that emphasize improving the areas in which he lives. He is a board member for Amegy Bank, All Tri, Habitat for Humanity, the North Texas Public Broadcasting Company, Inc. and KIPP Truth Academy. He also served as a Co-Chair of the 2006 Bond Campaign for the City of Dallas. Michael is an alum of the Texas Lyceum, a member of the Dallas Assembly, a British-American Project Fellow and a past Director of the Dallas- Ft. Worth Airport.

He also has a keen interest in politics having played key roles in the campaigns of Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk and Texas State Representative Rafael Anchia. Michael served on the Texas Finance Committee for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Honors & Awards

Michael attended the 2008 Harvard Seminar for New Presidents and has been named the “Educator of the Year” by the Dallas Black Police Officers Association (2007), SouthFair CDC (2007), and the IMA of Greater Dallas (2008). He has also been honored by the NAACP (2007) and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dallas (2008). He is a past recipient of the Dallas Urban League’s 2005 Torch for Community Leadership and the President’s Award from J.L. Turner for outstanding contributions to the Dallas legal community. Additionally, the Dallas Business Journal named him one of Dallas’ Forty Under 40.

This and more information about Paul Quinn College can be found on their website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. George C. Bradley: Paine College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:47:31 +0000

In October 2007, Dr. George C. Bradley was named the 14th President of Paine College in Augusta, Ga. Prior to being named president by the Paine College Board of Trustees, Dr. Bradley served as executive vice president of Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC.

Education

He is a graduate of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, SC where he also received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees. He earned a doctorate in Higher Education with a cognate in Statistical Research and Evaluation from Iowa State University. He has also studied at Harvard through the Institute for Educational Management. As well as an academic administrator, Dr. Bradley is a scholar of the people.

Career

He co-founded the South Carolina Institute for Research in Education (SCIRE). This institute sponsored research on education issues that impact African American communities in South Carolina. He is a regular contributor to the periodic publication entitled the State of Black South Carolina published by the Columbia Urban League. He has published and presented extensively in the areas of statistical analysis, program development and interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge.

Service

Dr. Bradley is active in a variety of civic and social organizations to include Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., Sigma Pi Phi Boulé and Rotary International. He contributes to the greater community as a member of several boards to include the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and the Columbia Urban League. The South Carolina Legislature recognized Dr. Bradley for his commitment as teacher, administrator, author, and researcher in the field of education for more than two decades with a Lifetime of Service concurrent resolution.

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Information courtesy of the Paine College website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Billy C. Hawkins: Talladega College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:19:18 +0000

Dr. Billy C. Hawkins became the 20th President of Talladega College beginning January 1, 2008. Previously, he served as the 20th President of Texas College from December 1, 2000 to December 31, 2007.

Just Before Talladega

Under Dr. Hawkins’ leadership, Texas College underwent a complete transformation and revitalization. Tremendous growth was evident in literally every area of the institution including an 82% increase in student enrollment within the first ten months of his tenure. To his credit, the institution stabilized its finances, regained accreditation in 2001, and regained membership in the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

Dr. Hawkins implemented five new academic programs, constructed three new facilities, remodeled all academic and student service facilities, procured property assets, eliminated all long term debt, and started seven new athletic programs which won three championships. Adding to the school’s successful turnaround, the college received a new 10 year accreditation in 2006.

Education

A native of Kent, Ohio, Dr. Hawkins holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Teacher Education from Ferris State University, a Master of Arts degree in Education Administration from Central Michigan University, and a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Michigan State University in Education Administration. He has completed post doctorate study at Harvard University.

Career

Dr. Hawkins has been in education for 32 years. He began his successful career as a teacher in the Lansing Michigan Public Schools System. His passion for teaching led him to the field of higher education where he has served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs/Professor at Mississippi Valley State University; Vice President for Academic Affairs/Professor at Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Virginia; Acting Dean, Associate Dean, and Assistant Dean/Professor in the College of Education at Ferris State University; and as Director of Educational Opportunity Program, State University of New York at Morrisville College.

Outside of Education Administration

An advocate for education, Dr. Hawkins was featured on the ABC Evening News with the late Peter Jennings and the U.S. News and World Report. He has been listed in Who’s Who among Executives and Professionals in 2005-2006. He is the author of two books, “Educating All Students (A Pathway to Success)”, and “Reaching for the Stars”. Recognized for his expertise in the education of our nation’s young people, he has been the keynote speaker at regional and national conferences and has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress.

Service

Dr. Hawkins has served on numerous boards including as a member of the Southside Virginia Business and Education Commission appointed by Mr. James S. Gilmore, III, and former Governor of Virginia.

Additionally, he was appointed to serve on the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Capital Financing Advisory Board by former Secretary of Education Rod Page. Also, he serves as a member of the UNCF Board of Directors, and a member of the NAIA President’s Council. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, Dr. Hawkins was inducted into the Kent City Schools Hall of Fame in 2004 and in 2007, he was inducted into the Elementary Alumni Hall of Fame in Kent, Ohio. Dr. Hawkins is a proud member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

[HBCU Presidents] Horace Mann Bond: 1st Black President of Fort Valley State College & Lincoln University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:48:39 +0000

Horace Mann Bond (November 8, 1904 – December 21, 1972) was an American historian, college administrator, social science researcher, and the father of civil-rights leader Julian Bond. He was an influential leader at several historically black colleges and was appointed the first president of Fort Valley State University in Georgia in 1939, where he managed its growth in programs and revenue. In 1945 he became the first African American president of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.

Early Life

Horace was born 8 November 1904 in Nashville, Tennessee, the grandson of slaves. His mother Jane Alice Browne was a schoolteacher, his father James Bond a minister who served at Congregational churches across the South, often associated with historically black colleges. Both had graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, one of the first colleges that was interracial. They were among the black elite and encouraged their children in academic achievement.

Horace was the sixth of seven children – one brother was prominent educator J. Max Bond, Sr.. At age eight, Bond suffered an attack by the Ku Klux Klan that wounded him more emotionally than physically. He worked all his life to advance his race.

Education

Bond excelled in school, graduating from high school at the age of fourteen. He graduated with honors from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania at age 19 in 1923. He also obtained membership in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. While taking classes at Pennsylvania State College, Bond earned grades higher than those of his white classmates. Later he returned to Lincoln University as an instructor. Bond then suffered the only setback to his success; he was dismissed from the college for tolerating a gambling ring in a dormitory which he was supervising. Despite his embarrassment at Lincoln, Bond achieved a reputation as a fine scholar and administrator.

A bit About Lincoln University

Bond earned the M.A. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation on black education in Alabama won the Rosenberger Prize in 1936. It was published in 1939. As was customary in those years, Bond taught at a variety of academic institutions before completing his doctorate, and published his first academic book in 1934. (He earned a master’s and doctorate from University of Chicago, at a time when only a small percentage of any young adults attended any college. )

Career

Bond taught at several universities while completing his doctorate, including Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma; Fisk University and Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He worked his way up in academic administration, proving his leadership abilities by becoming dean at Dillard University in 1934, and chairman of the education department at Fisk University later in the 1930s. Bond was the first president of Fort Valley State College, in Fort Valley, Georgia, where he was appointed in 1939 and served until 1945. During his tenure he managed the expansion of the college to a four-year institution. More importantly, he gained a doubling in school income and a tripling in the state’s appropriation for the college during lean economic times in the nation, substantial achievements for any college, and especially for a black college during the years of segregation.

Horace Mann Bond

In 1945 Bond was selected as president of Lincoln University, the first African American to be appointed to that position. He served at his alma mater until 1957. During those years, he started years of research for his history of Lincoln University. In 1953, together with historians John Hope Franklin and C. Vann Woodward, Bond did research that helped support the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s landmark US Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, anti-integrationists embarked on a program of massive resistance to orders to desegregate the South. In response to the efforts to claim an I.Q. gap between racial groups, Bond issued a number of stinging critiques of the racial claims about the intelligence of blacks. John P. Jackson, Jr. authored the most well known essay on Bond entitled “Racially Stuffed Shirts and Other Enemies of Mankind”: Horace Mann Bond’s parody of Segregationist Psychology in the 1950s.

He authored also Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order, and The Education of the Negro in Alabama. Visit the links below to access these and other books.

Books By and About Horace Mann Bond:

More Books by Horace Mann Bond

It is noteworthy that the papers of Horace Mann Bond have been archived at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Much of his research emphasized the social, economic, and geographic factors influencing academic achievement as well as demonstrating that Bond was at the forefront of not only black education but also the movement for civil rights.

He then returned with his family to the South, becoming dean of the School of Education at Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University). Bond later served as director of the Bureau of Educational and Social Research at the university. He retired in 1971.

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Information courtesy of Blackpast.org and wikipedia.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. David Hall: University of the Virgin Islands

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:35:05 +0000

Dr. David Hall began his tenure as the fifth President of the University of the Virgin Islands on August 1, 2009. He has been awarded a Distinguished University Professorship of Spirituality and Professionalism at UVI.

Education

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Dr. Hall holds a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University, where he was named an “all American” for his athletic and scholarly accomplishments. After graduating from Kansas State, he played professional basketball in Italy.

Dr. Hall holds both a doctorate of juridical science and an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School and received his juris doctorate from the University of Oklahoma, where he also earned a master’s degree in human relations.

Career

With a distinguished career as an educational administrator, Dr. Hall is also recognized as a preeminent scholar in the field of law. In 1993, when Dr. Hall was appointed Dean of the Northeastern University School of Law, he made history by being the first African-American to hold the position. He was appointed Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Northeastern in July of 1998 and served in that capacity until July of 2002.

In a December 1995 Wall Street Journal article on the Northeastern School of Law, Harvard Law Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. referred to Dr. Hall as “one of the most important leaders in legal education today.”

During his tenure as the chief academic officer for Northeastern, Dr. Hall oversaw significant growth in the University’s external research funding, retention rate and overall academic standing.

Having taught law for more than 20 years in the law schools of the University of Mississippi and the University of Oklahoma, in addition to Northeastern, Dr. Hall has developed a unique perspective with regard to legal education and the ethical standards of the profession. Working to bridge the often-alienated worlds of law and the inner city, he was instrumental in the formation of Northeastern’s Urban Law and Public Policy Institute, which brought community activists, government representatives and academicians together to develop solutions to urban dilemmas.

Publications

Dr. Hall’s publications include works on civil rights, the U.S. Constitution and race, legal education, and social justice. He has authored a book on the intersection of law and spirituality, entitled The Spiritual Revitalization of the Legal Profession: A Search for Sacred Rivers, and lectures nationally on topics of social justice, leadership, diversity and spiritual values in professional life.

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Information courtesy of University of the Virgin Islands website.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Dorothy Yancy: 1st Female President of Shaw University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:26:28 +0000

Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy, a native of Alabama, has joined the Shaw University family as interim president. Dr. Yancy served as the twelfth president of Johnson C. Smith University and was the first female elected to hold that post. In keeping with this standard, Dr. Yancy is now the first woman to serve as President of the prestigious Shaw University.

Education

Dr. Yancy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and social science from Johnson C. Smith University, a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. in political science from Atlanta University (Georgia), with further study at the University of Singapore, Hampton University, Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago), Northwestern University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Yancy earned certificates in management development from Harvard University and she is listed as an arbitrator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services and the American Arbitration Association. She also is a Special Magistrate with the Florida Public Employee Relations Commission.

Accomplishments at Johnson C. Smith University

During her tenure as president of Johnson C. Smith University, Dr. Yancy completed two significant capital campaigns. The first campaign, ‘Campaign for the 90’s,’ took place from 1993-1998 with a goal of $50 million. At the close of the campaign she exceeded this goal, raising $63.8 million. The second campaign, ‘Pathways to Success,’ was launched in October 2000 with a goal of raising $75 million. At the close of the campaign in June of 2007, she exceeded the goal again, raising $81.5. Under her leadership the University endowment more than tripled from $14 million to $53 million. For these achievements, she has been heralded as one of the best fundraisers nationally.

In 2000, Johnson C. Smith University became the first HBCU “Laptop” university, issuing IBM Thinkpads to all of its students. Prior to this historic feat, she led the University during a three-year period of strategic planning in technology and faculty/staff development, resulting in an integrated approach to a liberal arts higher education. This, too, was nationally recognized by her testifying before Congress in 2000 about the status of technology in higher education. As a result of her leadership, the University was ranked in 2001 by Yahoo Internet Life Magazine as one of the Top 50 most wired small colleges in the nation. In 2007 JCSU was ranked in the top ten of HBCUs by U.S. News and World Report.

Career

Dr. Yancy has earned the respect of the higher education community throughout her career. She served as a professor of history, technology and society and in the School of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) from 1972-1994. At Georgia Tech, she was the first African American to be promoted and tenured as a full professor. She also served as associate director of the School of Social Sciences. Previously she taught at several institutions including Albany State University, Hampton University, Evanston Township High School, and Barat College, where she was the director of the Afro-American Studies Program.

Dr. Yancy was the first American to lecture at the Academy of Public Administration and Social Studies of the Small Hural in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, in 1991.

Scholarship

In scholarship, as well as leadership, Dr. Yancy has excelled. She has published over 40 articles and labor arbitration cases in academic journals as “Dorothy Bolden, Organizer of Domestic Workers; She was Born Poor and She Would Not Bow Down,” Sage, “Public Sector Bargaining in the South: A Case Study of Atlanta and Memphis,” Industrial Relations Association Proceedings, “William Edward Burghardt Dubois – Atlanta Years: The Human Side – A Study Based upon Oral Sources,” The Journal of Negro History, and several articles in Black Women in America: A Historical Encyclopedia.

Service

In addition to her scholastic contributions, Dr. Yancy has contributed widely to civic and professional communities. She was the first African American to be appointed Special Master for the Florida Public Employee Relations Commission, was a member of labor delegations to the Soviet Union and Europe in 1988 and 1990, is the former president of the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists and of the Atlanta Chapter of the Industrial Relations Research Association, and is a former member of the Executive Council of The Links, Inc. In 2001, she became the first female to be elected President of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA). Further, Dr. Yancy is a former president of the Members Presidents of UNCF (2004-2006), a former member of the board of the Council of Independent Colleges, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History.

She is a former member of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities Commission on Financing Higher Education, the American Council of Education Commission on Women in Higher Education, and the U.S. Air Force Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institution (HBCU/MI) Board of Advisors. She is also a former member of the North Carolina Post-Secondary Eligibility and served as the chairperson of the 2005 HBCU Congressional Forum Steering Committee. She was also a member of the Association of Governing Boards Task Force on the State of the Presidency in American Higher Education in 2006. She served on the Board of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, the Board of Directors of Bank of America of the Carolinas, the Board of Charlotte Urban League, the Board of Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, and the Board of Opera Carolina.

She presently is an advisor to the Mint Museum of Art, member of the Board of Levine Museum of the New South, the Chamber of Commerce Board of Advisors, a member of the Corporate Board of UNCF, a member of the Executive Committee of UNCF and President of the North Carolina Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She is also a member of The National Association of HBCU Title III Administrators, Inc. Presidents Advisory Board.

Award

As a valued member of various publics, Dr. Yancy has received numerous awards: Outstanding Teacher of the Year, Georgia Tech; Undergraduate Faculty Member of the Year, Georgia Tech Student Government; Outstanding Faculty Member by the Georgia Tech Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity; listing in Outstanding Young Women in America, Outstanding Professional in Human Service, Who’s Who in Black America, Who’s Who Among American Women, the World’s Who’s Who Among Women in Education and selected as “one of the Six Best Teachers in the U.S.” by Newsweek on Campus in 1988. Other honors include membership in ANAK (a Georgia Institute of Technology leadership organization), The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society, Sigma Rho Sigma Honor Society, and Omicron Delta Kappa. She was inducted into the most prestigious honor society in the nation, the Delta of Georgia Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, in May 2002.

Since 1996, she has been widely recognized: Belle Ringer Image Award, Bennett College; National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame in Education; Black Issues in Higher Education, Twentieth Century Educator; Lifetime Achievement Award, North Carolina 4-H Club; W.E.B. DuBois Award, Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists; Maya Angelou Tribute to Achievement/UNCF; Torchbearer Award in Education; first woman to become the 10th Benjamin E. Mays Lecturer, Morehouse College; 2000 Person of Prominence, The Charlotte Post; and 2001 Outstanding Educator of the Year by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee. In the July 2002 issue of the national publication Savoy Magazine, she was listed as a “leader to watch.” In 2004, she received the Harold E. Delaney Exemplary Educational Leadership Award from the American Association for Higher Education.

In 2005, Dr. Yancy was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal as one of the Top Women in Business in the region and received the Old North State Award from the State of North Carolina. In January 2007, she received the Sisters Delany Honor Society Achievement Award, North Carolina Women of Distinction, and St. Augustine’s College. Also in 2007 she received the Horizon Award from Leadership Charlotte and the William J. Stanley Award from Georgia Institute of Technology.

In 2008, she was inducted into the Women’s History Hall of Fame by the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and the Levine Museum of the South. She also testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor on “America’s Black Colleges and Universities: Models of Excellence and Challenges for the Future.”

More information can be found on Answers.com.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Ivory V. Nelson: Lincoln University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Dr. Ivory V. Nelson, who has achieved a national reputation for his distinguished leadership in higher education, became the twelfth president of Lincoln University on August 15, 1999. Before coming to Lincoln, Dr. Nelson had served as the president of Central Washington University (CWU) for more than seven years. He was formally inaugurated as Lincoln’s president on April 14, 2000. A trained chemist, Dr. Nelson is listed among the world’s top scientists.

Education
He graduated magna cum laude from Grambling State University, in Louisiana, in 1959, with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education, chemistry. He immediately entered the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where he graduated with the Doctor of Philosophy degree in analytical chemistry with high departmental honors.

While at the University of Kansas, Dr. Nelson’s academic honors included induction into Phi Beta Kappa honorary society, Phi Lambda Upsilon honorary chemical society and the society of Sigma Xi for scientists. He has subsequently been inducted into Kappa Delta Phi education honor society, Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Phi Sigma physics honor society.

Career

In addition, he has a record of active community involvement throughout his 30-plus years in higher education. He served on the board of directors of Key Bank of Washington and was a member of the Washington State Commission on Student Learning, by gubernatorial appointment. He also was a member of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Arts, State of Washington. Dr. Nelson’s career in higher education includes receiving the Fulbright Lectureship, teaching graduate and undergraduate chemistry, and serving as department head, assistant dean of academic affairs, and vice president for research.

During the early 1980s, Dr. Nelson also served one year as acting president of Prairie View A&M University and three years as executive assistant to the chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. From 1986 to March 1992, he served as chancellor of the Alamo Community College District, San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Nelson’s Accomplishments at Lincoln University:

Dr. Nelson has authored eleven technical publications in the field of analytical chemistry, a chapter in one book and a chapter in a monograph. He has secured extensive outside funding through grants and proposal writing. In addition, he has acquired significant funding from state legislatures to construct major academic facilities.

His career in the corporate sector includes assignments as a research chemist for both Union Carbide and American Oil Company. Dr. Nelson is profiled in a book entitled, Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century.

The Central Washington University Foundation honored Dr. Nelson by establishing a $50,000 Ivory V. Nelson Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry, and the Board of Trustees of CWU passed a Resolution in August 1999 conferring on him the title of President Emeritus.

About Lincoln University:

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Information obtained from Lincoln University’s website.

[HBCU Presidents] Donald Reaves: Chancellor of Winston-Salem State Univ.

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:34:10 +0000

Dr. Donald Julian Reaves was elected Chancellor at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), in February 2007, by the Board of Governors of the 16-campus University of North Carolina System, and assumed his duties as Chancellor on August 16, 2007.

Career

Prior to his election as Chancellor at WSSU, he had served as Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer at the University of Chicago and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer at Brown University.

In his role as vice president and CFO, Dr. Reaves had primary oversight of the University of Chicago’s fiscal and administrative operations. Key areas of responsibility included budgeting, human resources, capital planning and facilities services, construction, risk management, and fiscal and strategic planning. Dr. Reaves also supported five committees of the university’s Board of Trustees.

Dr. Reaves’ 14-year tenure at Brown University in Providence, RI, included leadership positions as Assistant Vice President and University Budget Director, Vice President for Finance, and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer. He served in the latter position for nine years prior to being named Vice President for Administration and CFO at the University of Chicago in 2002.

Education

A native of Cleveland, OH, Dr. Reaves majored in political science at Cleveland State University. He graduated in 1976. After completing his master’s degree (1978) and a doctoral degree (1981), both in political science and public administration at Kent State University, he accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Northeastern University in Boston. Although Dr. Reaves soon joined the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare (1984-88), rising to Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Budget and Cost Control, he continued to teach as an adjunct professor in Northeastern’s Graduate School of Arts and Science until 1993.

Active in professional and higher-education organizations, Dr. Reaves is a former chair of the Roxbury (Boston, MA) Community College Board of Trustees and a former vice chair of the Tougaloo (MS) College Board of Trustees. He has previously served as a director of the Eastern Association of Colleges and University Business Officers (ECUBO), and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). Dr. Reaves currently serves on the boards of the American Student Assistance Corp., the William Blair Mutual Funds, and the Amica Mutual Insurance Company.

A Clip about Winston-Salem State University

Tension on WSSU?

Although we give credit to Dr. Reaves and honor his accomplishments. We are also aware of the current tension at WSSU. If any of our readers knows the facts and events surrounding this tension, please share your comments below. For more information about this tension, please visit http://firedonaldreaves.wordpress.com/.

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-Information obtained from http://wssuchancellor.com. More information and media about Chancellor Reaves can be found there.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. JoAnn W. Haysbert: Langston University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:20:32 +0000

Dr. JoAnn W. Haysbert was appointed fifteenth president of Langston University in August 2005 by the Board of Regents for Oklahoma State University and the A&M Colleges. This appointment distinguishes her as the first African-American female president of an institution of higher education in the state of Oklahoma.

Education

Dr. Haysbert eared a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Johnson C. Smith University, and a master’s and a doctoral degree in administration and supervision in higher education from Auburn University. She also studied at California State University in San Jose, and earned a certificate for educational management from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

Career

A seasoned administrator who leads by example, Dr. Haysbert has amassed a stellar list of credentials during her more than thirty years as an academician and higher education administrator. She came to Langston University after a long and successful 25-year tenure at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. During her time there, her superior administrative skills and scholastic acumen resulted in her serving in several key positions, including acting president, provost, assistant provost, professor and coordinator of graduate programs in education, dean of freshman studies, assistant vice president for academic affairs, director of summer sessions, and director of the assessment and learning support center.

She has also held positions at Virginia State University, Auburn University and Alexander City State Junior College.

Langston University Emblem

Lauded as an “innovator” and a “fiscally intuitive administrator,” Dr. Haysbert has brought to Langston University a new way of thinking about the business of higher education during her first year at the helm. Under the guiding mantra, “From Excellence to Greatness,” she has already worked collaboratively with Langston stakeholders to create a vision that will enhance the University’s mission to spawn innovation, generate new technologies and ideas, and produce talented graduates for tomorrow’s global marketplace.

The prolific author, researcher and grant writer is active in numerous organizations including the Board of Directors, The State Chamber; the Commission on Women in Higher Education, American Council on Education (ACE); Board of Directors, Greenwood Cultural Center; Leadership Oklahoma, Class XX; and the Community Relations Council, Guthrie Job Corps.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. George C. Wright: Prairie View A&M University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:59:02 +0000

Dr. George C. Wright, noted African-American scholar, is the seventh President of Prairie View A&M University, the second oldest public institution of higher education in Texas. Offering baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral degrees through nine colleges and schools, Dr. Wright now leads the 129-year old HBCU with an established reputation for producing thousands of African American engineers, nurses and educators. A member of the Texas A& M University System, the University is dedicated to fulfilling its land-grant mission of achieving excellence in teaching, research and service.

Education

A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Dr. Wright received his bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in history from the University of Kentucky and his doctorate in history from Duke University. In 2004 Dr. Wright was awarded an honorary doctorate of Letters from the University of Kentucky.

Prior to joining the Prairie View A&M University family, Dr. Wright was Executive Vice-President for academic affairs and provost at the University of Texas at Arlington. Prior to assuming that post, he was provost and vice president for academic affairs with increasing responsibilities from 1995 to 1998. In 1993, he joined the faculty at Duke University as vice provost for university programs and director of the Afro-American studies program at Duke University. At Duke, he also held the William R. Kenan, Jr., Chair in American History. From 1980 to 1993, he served as an assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and was the holder of the Mastin Gentry White Professorship of Southern History, and vice provost for undergraduate education at the University of Texas at Austin. His wealth of experience in higher education began as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in 1977.

Honors & Awards

Dr. Wright has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and awards. At the University of Texas at Austin, he received the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, the “Eyes of Texas” Award for excellence in service and the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Award for “Outstanding Black Faculty Member.” He was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship at Harvard University and was the Friar Society Centennial Fellow for Teaching Excellence, the Silver Spurs Centennial Teaching Fellow and the Lillian and Tom B. Rhodes Centennial Teaching Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2008, an annual $2,500 cholarship was established in his honor, The George C. Wright Scholarship.

To his credit, Dr. Wright is the author of three books, which include: A History of Blacks in Kentucky: In Pursuit of Equality, 1890-1980, Volume II; Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and “Legal Lynchings”, and the Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865-1930.

He was presented the Governors Award by the Kentucky Historical Society for Lynchings, Mob Rule, and “Legal Lynchings”, and the Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky. He currently has another book in progress, a biography of Robert Charles O’Hara Benjamin: A “Forgotten” Afro-American Leader and has published numerous articles, chapters in books and essays.

Active in his community, Dr. Wright has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the City of Arlington Chamber Foundations and the Medical Center of Arlington. He has also served as a member of the Editorial Board for the Southern Biography Series at Louisiana State University, the Board of Editors of the Journal of Southern History and the Southern Historical Association Program Committee.

Dr. George C. Wright on Juneteenth:

To read a 2006 interview with Dr. Wright, click here.

Information obtained from Prairie View’s website.

[HBCU Presidents] Marvalene Hughes: Dillard University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:36:22 +0000

Dr. Marvalene Hughes of Modesto, California is the ninth and first woman President of Dillard University. Hughes succeeds interim President Dr. Bettye Parker Smith. She officially began her presidency on July 1, 2005.

“Dr. Hughes is highly qualified and has a wealth of experience in higher education. The Board felt that she was the best candidate to move Dillard to the next level of academic excellence,” said Charles A. Ferguson, chairman of the Dillard University Board of Trustees.

Hughes previously served as President of California State University’s Stanislaus campus where she served as the first woman and first President of color, a position she has held since 1994. During her extensive career in higher education, Hughes has served in a number of high-level leadership positions at major research universities.

“After eleven years as President of California State University, Stanislaus and as a public servant to the people and the State of California, I have decided to take on a new and exciting leadership challenge. CSU Stanislaus is in excellent condition, and it has been my pleasure to serve. I now take on a very special challenge – one of personal passion and extreme importance – the Presidency of Dillard University, one of America’s outstanding private liberal arts universities.

“I was solely attracted to this position because I owe much of my early training and inspiration to the instruction and close mentoring I received at an Historically Black University. I am extremely proud of my heritage and the legacy of excellence with which I was imbued during those years.

“It is now my opportunity to give back in the very best way that I know how, by joining with the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, administration and the alumni of Dillard University to positively transform the lives and dreams of Dillard’s students, so they, too, can achieve their ambitions,” added Hughes. “As an Historically Black University, Dillard is a national treasure, and I anticipate moving the University fast-forward during the first decade of the 21st century.”

Exhibiting strong leadership and integrity, combined with her passion and commitment to providing educational opportunities to America’s young scholars, Hughes has served as vice president for Student Affairs/Vice Provost and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, and system-wide administrator for all four University of Minnesota campuses. Hughes was vice president and professor at the University of Toledo, associate vice president for student affairs at Arizona State and a senior-level administrator at San Diego State University.

Underscoring her dedication to building global educational opportunities, she initiated international partnerships with the Arab American University in Jenin (Palestinian Territory), Ethiopian-African American University (Addis Ababa), Hanseo University in South Korea, Evora University in Portugal, the University of the Azores and Tamkang University in Taiwan.

Hughes has published and conducted research in the areas of education, managing organizations, human behavior and diversity. She has made hundreds of presentations globally including throughout the United States, Austria, South Africa, Russia, Lithuania, China, Bermuda, Jordan, the Emirates and Ethiopia. She has been the recipient of several professional and community service awards from both national and international groups.

Her educational background includes earning a Ph.D. in Counseling and Administration from Florida State University, and Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Tuskegee University. She has pursued post-doctoral study at Harvard, New York University and Columbia University.

Established in 1869, Dillard University is a liberal arts, four-year, co-educational, historically black institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ. The University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the National League of Nursing, the Louisiana State Board of Nursing Education and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and offers the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees. It is currently ranked in the top 10 of all HBCUs.

The University is a charter member of the United Negro College Fund, and has been cited as a top-tier Southern comprehensive liberal arts institution by U. S. News and World Report and other publications.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Earl G. Yarbrough, Sr. – Savannah State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:50:25 +0000

Dr. Earl G. Yarbrough Sr., full professor and former provost and vice president for academic and student affairs at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va., was named President of Savannah State University on May 30, 2007.

Regent Elridge McMillan served as chair of the Special Regents’ Committee charged with interviewing the presidential finalists submitted by the campus-based Presidential Search and Advisory Committee and making a recommendation to the chancellor and full Board of Regents for final approval.

“Dr. Yarbrough was an extremely impressive finalist with two decades of experience as an academic administrator. He already has made significant contributions to three historically black universities, and we have every reason to believe he will do even more for Savannah State,” McMillan said.

“Dr. Yarbrough has shown himself to be a highly ethical and student-oriented administrator,” said Beheruz N. Sethna, interim executive vice chancellor in charge of the University System of Georgia’s comprehensive universities. “He has enhanced the quality of graduates and teaching at his previous institutions through the expansion of research and scholarly activities and outreach/service efforts.”

In 2004, while a tenured professor of industrial technology at Virginia State University, Yarbrough completed a year-long fellowship in Washington, D.C., with the Kellogg Foundation Minority Serving Institution Leadership Program that prepares minority professionals for the challenges and rigors of becoming university presidents, chancellors or other senior leadership roles in higher education. He has also completed the Harvard University Institute for Educational Management.

Yarbrough was the chief academic and student affairs officer at Virginia State from 1998 to 2003, managing approximately $75 million in state and federal funds, tuition and fees, research dollars, and grants and gifts awarded to the university. As provost, he directed the university’s five-year strategic plan and supervised the institution’s day-to-day academic concerns. Under Yarbrough’s leadership, a School of Engineering, Science and Technology and a School of Graduate Studies, Research and Outreach were established, a comprehensive student support center opened, several new degree programs were developed, including a high-demand doctor-of-education program, and VSU established a University Council to represent faculty, staff, administrators and students. Also during Yarbrough’s tenure as provost, VSU experienced a significant increase in state support, funded grants, grant proposals and alumni and corporate giving.

Yarbrough also has administrative experience at two other public historically black universities, having served as the first dean of the School of Technology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C., from 1986 to 1998 and chair of the Industrial Technology Department at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in Pine Bluff, Ark., from 1984 to 1986.

As dean at North Carolina A&T, he built a student support center and played a key role in obtaining state funding for a new $8 million building, received more than $15 million in research grants and contracts, equipment and scholarships, added undergraduate and graduate programs, and established several 2+2 articulation agreements. As a department chair at the University of Arkansas, Yarbrough increased student enrollment in industrial technology programs by 25 percent and developed and implemented a successful technology transfer and symposium program.

In addition, Yarbrough has held full professorships at Virginia State University (1998-present), North Carolina A & T (1986-1998), the University of Arkansas (1984-1986) and Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah, Okla. (1982-84).

Yarbrough earned a Ph.D. in industrial education from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, in 1976, a master of arts in industrial studies from California State University at Los Angeles in 1974 and a bachelor of arts in industrial education from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan., in 1969.

Savannah State University

Savannah State University is a four-year, state-supported, historically black university (HBCU) located in Savannah, Georgia. Savannah State holds the distinction as the oldest public historically black university in Georgia.

With the growth in its graduate and research programs, in 1996 the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia elevated Savannah State College to the status of state university and the name was changed to Savannah State University^.

Savannah State University is the first institution in the state of Georgia to offer the homeland security degree program. It was the second institution in the University System of Georgia to offer wireless Internet connectivity to students throughout the campus.

[HBCU_Presidents] The Honorable Hazel R. O'Leary: Fisk University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:20:53 +0000

Hazel Reid O’Leary (born May 17, 1937) was selected as President of her undergraduate alma mater, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee (the 1st university in Nashville) in 2004. She has led a major fundraising effort at Fisk University that has brought the school into the black after years of financial difficulties. President O’Leary has helped the university recapture its place in competing for top students and financial support, and has attracted outstanding faculty.

Education

In 1959 she graduated with honors from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and seven years later (1966) received her law degree from Rutgers University.

Career

She was the seventh United States Secretary of Energy, from 1993 to 1997. As of 2009 she is the first and only woman and first and only African American to hold the position.

O’Leary worked as a prosecutor in New Jersey and was later a partner in the consulting/accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (now merged with Price Waterhouse Cooper) . During the Carter Administration, O’Leary was appointed assistant administrator of the Federal Energy Administration, general counsel of the Community Services Administration, and administrator of the Economic Regulatory Administration at the newly created Department of Energy.

O’Leary gained a reputation as an advocate of the poor during the administration of Gerald Ford, when she served as general counsel to the Community Services Administration, which ran many of the anti-poverty programs that had been implemented in the Great Society era of the 1960s. During the Ford years, O’Leary also launched into energy policy, an area fraught with the competing interests of industry, the environment, and consumer protection.

In 1981, O’Leary and her husband established the consulting firm of O’Leary & Associates, where she served as vice president and general counsel. After her husband’s death in 1987, Hazel O’Leary folded the consulting firm and, in 1989, joined Northern States Power Company, one of the largest gas and electric utilities in the Midwest, serving 1.6 million customers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. From 1989 to 1993, she worked as an executive vice president of the Northern States Power Company.

In 1993 President Bill Clinton nominated O’Leary as Secretary of Energy.

In March of 1993, she made public an administration proposal to convert one of the nation’s three laboratories for nuclear weapon design into a center for research on environmental cleanup technology.

In December of 1993, O’Leary gained more supporters by disclosing the government’s role in radiation tests during the 1940s and 1950s. Facing the outcry of the general public and the opposition of her own staff, O’Leary nonetheless revealed that unsuspecting people were subjected to experimental radiation–the levels of which have since been declared unsafe. O’Leary has also made it her mission to inform the American public about storage sites for spent nuclear fuel. As these actions attest, in her role as secretary of Energy, O’Leary has shown administrative skill as well as concern about the welfare of citizens of the United States.

An interesting clip about Fisk University:

Information from wikipedia and answers.com.

[HBCU_Presidents] Dr. Ronald Mason: Jackson State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:22:47 +0000

Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. assumed the presidency of Jackson State University on February 1, 2000. He is Chief Executive Officer of the only university based in the largest metropolitan area and capital city of the state of Mississippi. He brought to the University a wealth of experience in higher education, community development and the law. At the time of his appointment by the Board of Trustees, State Institutions of Higher Learning, he was serving as Executive Director of the Tulane-Xavier National Center for the Urban Community in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As Founder and Executive Director of the Tulane-Xavier Center, Dr. Mason coordinated the two universities’ extensive involvement in public housing, economic development and public education. These initiatives grew from Dr. Mason’s 1996 appointment by then U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros as Executive Monitor for the Housing Authority of New Orleans. In this unique role, Dr. Mason was assigned the additional responsibility by Tulane to oversee the recovery of the housing authority, including the involvement of Tulane and Xavier faculty, students and staff in developing model programs to stimulate resident self-sufficiency and to implement welfare reform and welfare to work programs through the Tulane-Xavier Campus Affiliates Program and the Tulane Institute for Resident Initiatives. The campus affiliates program was funded through a $10 million grant obtained by Dr. Mason from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Other initiatives developed in the Tulane-Xavier Center included a Ford Foundation public school reform planning initiative, an Annie E. Casey neighborhood development and family strengthening initiative, and a welfare to work initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. During his 18 years at Tulane, Dr. Mason served in several capacities, including Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and Vice President for Finance and Operations. As chief legal officer, he was the principal legal advisor to the President, senior officers, deans, and Board of Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund. He also managed the University’s business operations in his role as Senior Vice President.

His accomplishments at Tulane included establishment of the Tulane-Xavier-Loyola-Dillard universities Martin Luther King Week for Peace and bringing to Tulane the Amistad Research Center, one of the nation’s largest collections of original documents and art on the experience of minorities in the United States. He also was the principal investigator on a grant awarded by the Ford Foundation to explore the issue of racism in higher education with presidents of highly selective southern universities, and spent six weeks in Kenya and Tanzania, East Africa, as Tulane’s representative on the Louisiana Consortium for Higher Education. Dr. Mason has written and spoken extensively on many topics, including community and economic development, diversity and multiculturalism.

Dr. Mason has been or is involved in numerous public service activities, including membership on the following boards and committees: the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity of the U.S. Department of Education, the President’s Advisory Board of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education Board of Directors, and the First American Community Development Corporation Board. He is also the recipient of the Mayors Medal of Honor from the City of New Orleans and the Martin Luther King Lifetime Achievement Award from Dillard-Loyola-Tulane and Xavier Universities. As President of Jackson State University, Dr. Mason serves on the Boards of Downtown Jackson Partners, Jackson Medical Mall Foundation, Mississippi Technology Alliance, Mississippi Telecommunications Conference and Training Center Commission, the Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, and the MetroJackson Chamber of Commerce.

Dr. Mason earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Columbia University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. Carolyn W. Meyers: Norfolk State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:42:32 +0000

Carolyn W. Meyers, Ph.D., the fourth president of Norfolk State University, previously served as provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and a tenured professor in the College of Engineering at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. Meyers holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Howard University, a master’s in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, also from Georgia Tech. She has completed post doctoral work at Harvard University. Her career in higher education spans more than 30 years and includes both academic and administrative experiences.

Highlights from her career include the following:

Currently serves as the first chair of the Board of Trustees for the National Institute of Aerospace Foundation and previously served as inaugural chair of National Institute of Aerospace Board of Directors.

Currently holds membership on the Board of Trustees of Norwich University, MentorNet, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education, the Board of Governors for RTI International, the Advisory Board for the Journal of Engineering Education, the Board of Directors of Riverside Health Foundation, Hampton Roads Partnership, the Greater Norfolk Corporation; Nauticus, the Norfolk Forum, and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Capital Financing Advisory Board. Also serves on the Regional Board of Directors for the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, an Advisory Committee Member for the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project, a member of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s 2007 Assessment Task Force, a member the Economics Club of Hampton Roads, and serving a second term as a member-at-large of the ASME Committee on Honors.

Current appointments to the Innovative Technology Authority, the American Council on Education Commission on Effective Leadership and a two-year term on the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Council of State Representatives beginning January 1, 2009.

She has served on other boards in other states including the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and the Moses Cone Health Systems.

Served as the first associate dean of research for the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech and was later appointed professor and dean of the College of Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University.

Inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni at Georgia Tech, Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi and Tau Beta Pi honor societies.

In addition to university service, served as a program officer in two divisions of the National Science Foundation—the Division of Undergraduate Education and the Division of Human Resource Development.

Received numerous national awards in higher education including the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Society of Automotive Engineers’ Ralph A. Teetor Award, and the National Society of Black Engineers’ Golden Torch Award.

Dr. Meyers is a native of Newport News, Va. She is the proud parent of three adult children and grandmother of three.

Dr. Meyers on being a Girl Scout:

-Taken from Norfolk State’s website and Youtube.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. James H. Ammons: Florida A&M University (FAMU)

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:14:33 +0000

On July 2, 2007, Dr. James H. Ammons, became the tenth president of Florida A&M University (FAMU), which is heralded by Black Enterprise Magazine as being the nation’s top institution for African Americans.

Since his arrival at the University, he has built a top-notch, strong leadership team. In addition, Dr. Ammons secured accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education in which the board voted to reaffirm the College’s accreditation status through June 30, 2010. Under his leadership FAMU also received its first unqualified audit in three years from the Auditor General’s Office; and this summer, the University will enroll students for the first time in a new doctorate program in physical therapy.

A native Floridian, Ammons grew up in the heart of Florida’s citrus belt. He graduated cum laude with a B.S. degree in political science from FAMU and earned the M.S. in public administration in 1975, and the Ph.D. in government in 1977 from Florida State University.

He began his teaching career in public policy and administration in 1977 as an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida. He returned to FAMU in 1983 as an associate professor of political science, and in 1984, he was promoted to the position of Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs. In 1989, he was promoted to Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and also served as Director of Title III Programs. At Florida A&M University, he developed more than 22 bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degree programs, and he worked to reestablish the FAMU School of Law.

Prior to his appointment at FAMU, Ammons served as the ninth chief administrator of North Carolina Central University (NCCU). At NCCU, enrollment reached an all-time high during his tenure, climbing from 5,476 in 2000-2001 to 8,675 in 2006-2007 — a 58.4 percent increase. NCCU became the fastest growing institution in the University of North Carolina System. NCCU had many successes in fundraising under Ammons’ leadership. From 2001 through 2006, NCCU received more than $40 million in private gifts to support the construction of facilities, scholarships, faculty development and outreach programs.

Dr. Ammons has chaired accreditation teams for North Carolina Central University, Norfolk State University, South Carolina State University and Clemson University. He was recently appointed a member of the Board of Directors for “The Conference Board,” which links corporate and academic perspectives on the economy, management and the role of business in society. He also serves on the board of the National Association of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Title III Administrators, Inc. and is a member of the National Academies Committee of Underrrepresented Groups and the Expansion of the Science and Engineering Workforce pipeline. In September 2002, he was elected to serve as a member of the Board of Directors for the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. He also serves as a member of the Board of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Ammons has received many honors and awards and is actively involved in the community. In 2006, he was the recipient of the Carlie B. Sessoms Human Rights Award from the City of Durham for his efforts to create harmony in the midst of the Duke University lacrosse case and the Willie E. Gary “Making a Difference Award.” In 2005, he received the Bethune Carver Dewy Education Legacy Award from SECME and the Upliftment Education Achievement Award from Upliftment Jamaica, a non-profit organization for his commitment to education. He is the 1995 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Social Sciences of Florida State University; the 1999 Distinguished Alumni Award from Florida A&M University; and, in 2000, he was the recipient of the Millennium Award by Florida A&M University.

-From FAMU’s website

You & All The Black Scholars in Your Life!

Leshell Hatley — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:44:36 +0000

The BSI Staff has reflected about a great many issues over the past 3 months of our existence in this current form. We realized that we have celebrated the lives of two young Black Scholars whose lives have been taken from them (Derrion Albert & Jasmin Lynn) , we’ve thematically shined light on some amazing Black Scholars in academia, and we’ve probably been the first online entity to celebrate the Presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the US. We’ve done a great deal!

However, we realize that none of it would have meant much without the readers who check-in every day, who have used our content as summer enrichment and class discussions, and those who have shared comments of appreciation.

So today, we’d like to show appreciation for You & the Black Scholars in Your Life! For without them, the content of this website would not be as important to you as it has been expressed. As part of this appreciation, we’ve decided to add more content aspects such as tips for young students (Black Scholars in the making), job announcements, etc. So, please continue to check-in daily, share you comments, and look forward to more great content as we move into the next quarter of The Black Scholars Index!

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Chancellor Harold Martin, NC A&T State

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:29:45 +0000

Dr. Harold Martin holds a bachelors and masters of science degrees in electrical engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T State) and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He was elected the twelfth Chancellor of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and assumed his position on June 8, 2009. As chief executive and administrative officer of the institution, he provides visionary leadership that establishes long range strategic plans in consultation with its various constituencies; assert strategic leadership to develop innovative approaches for expansion resources and ensure the fiscal and academic vitality of all colleges and schools.

Dr. Martin facilitates collaborative relationships between A&T, the community, media, businesses, corporations, government, alumni, donors, the University of North Carolina System, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and other educational institutions.
He demonstrates a high level of campus visibility, political savvy, civic and community involvement, and cultivates diverse internal and external publics.
Dr. Martin provides leadership to take A&T to the next level of excellence in delivering the highest quality of education and life preparation possible, ensuring that students are prepared to become competitive global citizens.
He provides fiscal management for a multi-million dollar budget and demonstrates a high level of commitment to all aspects of A&T’s culture.

Dr. Martin became the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina in July of 2006. As the Senior Vice President, Dr. Martin led the development and implementation of the academic mission of the University, including teaching, research, international programs and student affairs. He advised the President and provided leadership for the President’s council. Dr. Martin advised the Board of Governors on academic affairs issues of university-wide importance; led strategic academic planning and the implementation of resulting policies affecting the system; worked closely with campus chancellors and chief academic officers on university-wide academic initiatives; worked to maintain the focus of the missions of the campuses, and implemented the academic portion of the Long-Range Plan.

He led the University’s research and educational missions and oversaw Academic Planning; Faculty Support and International Programs; Academic and Student Affairs; Sponsored Programs and Research; Strategy Development and Analysis; and the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority, units which comprise the Division of Academic Affairs.

Prior to joining UNC General Administration, Dr. Martin was the eleventh chief administrator and the seventh chancellor of Winston-Salem State University from January 2000 to July 2006. While at WSSU, he guided the reclassification of WSSU from a baccalaureate I to a master’s II institution, created a School of Graduate Studies and Research, established seven master’s degree programs and enhanced the quality of overall academic programs. While at WSSU the university’s enrollment doubled since 2000, giving WSSU the fastest growing enrollment in the University of North Carolina system.

Dr. Martin served as a strong community leader while at WSSU and participated in several local citizen initiatives, including, Biotechnology in the Piedmont Triad, the ECHO Council, Leadership Winston-Salem, the Piedmont Triad Partnership, the Triad Entrepreneurial Initiative, The Winston-Salem Millennium Fund, Winston-Salem Alliance, and the Winston-Salem Rotary Club. Dr. Martin serves on the boards of the Research Triangle Institute, UNC Press, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the Southern Education Foundation, TUCASI, UNC-TV Foundation, and the Winston-Salem Foundation; and serves on the SACS Commission on Colleges.

Dr. Martin has written and co-authored numerous articles and has made many presentations at national and international conferences. He has served as a consultant to major corporations and companies and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society, Eta Kappa Nu, the International Honor Society for Electrical Engineers, and Beta Gamma Sigma, the International Honor Society for Business.

Earlier positions include vice chancellor of academic affairs at NCA&T State University (1994-99), and dean of the college of engineering (1989-94.) He was chair (1985-87) and acting chair (1984-85) of electrical engineering at NC A&T State.

He is married to the former Davida Wagner, and they have two sons, Harold Jr. and Walter. Davida is the county attorney for Forsyth County; Harold Jr. is a graduate of Morehouse College, Harvard Business School, and Yale Law School; and Walter, a graduate of Hampton University, attends the University of Maryland Dental School.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. Charlie Nelms: North Carolina Central University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:21:40 +0000

Dr. Charlie Nelms is the tenth and current (as of 2008) chancellor of North Carolina Central University. As one of the University of North Carolina 16 campuses, NCCU is the fastest-growing campus and today enrolls more than 8,500 students.

A native of Crawfordsville, Arkansas, Dr. Nelms majored in agronomy and chemistry at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, graduating in 1968. He later earned a master’s degree in higher education and student affairs (1971) and a doctoral degree in higher education administration (1977) from Indiana University. Early in his career, Chancellor Nelms held teaching and administrative positions at Earlham College in Indiana, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Indiana University Northwest in Gary and Sinclair Community College in Ohio.

In 1987, Nelms began a seven-year tenure as chancellor of Indiana University East, a commuter campus serving east-central Indiana. Dr. Nelms demonstrated his innovative leadership as he guided Indiana University to new levels of excellence. During his tenure there, the campus was the fastest-growing college in the state of Indiana. In 1994, He was named chancellor of the University of Michigan-Flint (UMF), an urban campus that enrolls over 6,500 students and offers a full spectrum of undergraduate and master’s degree programs. He resolved a significant campus budget deficit, reversed a four-year enrollment decline, and secured more than $75 million in private gifts to UMF.

Active in professional, civic, and higher-education organizations, Dr. Nelms served on the Board of Governors for the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, the National Advisory Board of the National Survey of Student Engagement and has chaired the American Council on Education Commission for Leadership Development. In addition, he has served as chair of the Higher Learning Commission, and a member of the NCAA Sports Wagering Task Force.

Currently, Dr. Nelms serves on the board of directors of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation; the National Advisory Board of the National Survey for Student Engagement; Board of Governors for the Center on Philanthropy; and is a founder and board member of the Millennium Leadership Institute and the Kinsey Institute Board of Trustees, among others.

A former American Council on Education Fellow and Ford Fellow, Nelms holds honorary degrees from Earlham College and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous awards for his contributions to education and service to students, including the Benjamin Hooks Award for Meritorious Achievement from the Gary (IN) branch of the NAACP, the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Indiana University, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, the President’s Medal from the University of Michigan and from Indiana University, and the State of Indiana’s Sagamore of the Wabash—the highest civilian award bestowed by the governor.

Chancellor Nelms has written a book titled “Start Where You Find Yourself: Lessons Taught and Lessons Learned.” Passionate about ending world hunger, Chancellor Nelms has given all proceeds from the sale of this book to the United Nations World Food Programme, Hoosier Hills Food Bank and to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Keith Norris: Interim President of Charles Drew University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:14:59 +0000

Dr. Keith Norris

Dr. Keith Norris is a Professor of Medicine, Departments of Internal Medicine, Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science and holds a dual appointment at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Dr. Norris attended Cornell University, Ithaca, New York from 1973 to 1976. He received his M.D. degree from Howard University School of Medicine in 1980. Dr. Norris completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. from 1980 to 1983. He was the Chief Resident in the Department of Internal Medicine at Howard from 1982 to 1983. Dr. Norris completed his Nephrology Fellowship and an additional Research Fellowship at UCLA School of Medicine, and Wadsworth (West Los Angeles) Veterans Administration Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA. from 1983 to 1986.

He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology (diagnosis and treatment of kidney diseases), and an American Heart Association certified hypertension specialist. Dr. Norris has served as Residency Program Director and subsequently as Vice Chairman and Interim Chair for the Department of Internal Medicine, and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Medicine. He was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha, Medical Honor Society in 1980 and inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame (Science) in 2003. He is currently a postdoctoral candidate in metaphysics, spirituality, and holistic health.

Dr. Norris is a member of the NIH Study Section for the National Center for Research Resources and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. He is a former member of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative National Advisory Committee. Presently he is a member of the NKF Kidney Early Evaluation Program National Advisory Committee and the NIH/National Center for Research Resources Clinical Research Working Group.

Dr. Norris holds numerous professional memberships. He is a founding member and former president of the National Association of Minority Nephrologists and is a former member of the board of directors for both the American Association of Kidney Patients and the Renal Physicians Association, and presently a member of the board of directors for the International Society for Hypertension in Blacks (ISHIB). A frequent presenter in both professional and academic settings, Dr. Norris has co-authored more than 100 scholarly publications and over 100 research abstracts. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Ethnicity & Disease, the official journal for ISHIB .

His research interests include renal osteodystrophy, the epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of hypertension and chronic kidney disease, and the reduction of health disparities He is the Director of the NIH funded Clinical Research Center, and the principal investigator for two large NIH program project grant directed at reducing health disparities. In 2005, Dr. Norris assumed his new position as Vice President for Research at Charles Drew University.

[ HBCU_PRESIDENTS ] Dr. Mary Sias: Kentucky State University

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:14:15 +0000

Dr. Mary E. Sias

Selected as the 13^th president of Kentucky State University in 2004, Dr. Mary Sias has focused on creating an environment of accountability, transparent communications and collegial decision making since her arrival. She has a strong concern for and demonstrated commitment to students and to building stronger relationships with the broader community. Under her leadership, new graduate programs are being added, there has been a focus on KSU’s Land Grant status and significant improvements in technology are taking place on campus to prepare students to meet the global challenges facing them. In addition, fund-development efforts of the university have improved substantially.

In 2007, Kentucky State University, an HBCU, was listed among the Princeton Review’s “Best Southeastern Colleges” and U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Colleges 2007.”

KSU President Mary Sias told members of the House Education and Labor Committee,

“I am often asked whether HBCUs continue to be viable. The answer I give is a resounding yes. HBCUs are as vital now to the educational is America as they have ever been.”

Prior to coming to Kentucky, Dr. Sias served nine years as senior vice president for student affairs and external relations at The University of Texas Dallas, where she was also an associate professor of sociology. She also served as chief executive officer of the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas for 14 years.

Throughout her professional career, volunteerism has been an integral part of her life, and she has received numerous awards for her community efforts, including the “She Knows Where She’s Going Award,” given by Girls Clubs Inc. Since coming to Frankfort, Dr. Sias has joined the Board of Directors of the Frankfort Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA Board, Leadership Kentucky and the University of Kentucky Museum of Art Board.

A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Dr. Sias earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Tougaloo College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. She was awarded a Ford Foundation doctoral fellowship and pursued her Master’s and Doctorate in sociology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She also received a master’s in business administration from Abilene Christian College.

If you are student at Kentucky State, you should enter our HBCU Clips Challenge and represent your school!

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Daniel Payne: 1st Black College President in the US

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:00:38 +0000

Daniel Alexander Payne

Daniel Alexander Payne was a United States clergyman, educator, college administrator and author. He became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was a major shaper of it in the 19th century. He was one of the founders of Wilberforce University. In 1863 he became its first president, and the first African-American president of a college in the United States.

Daniel Payne was born free in Charleston, South Carolina on February 24, 1811, of African, European and Native American descent. His parents London and Martha Payne were part of the “Brown Elite” of free blacks, but both died before he reached maturity. While his great aunt assumed Daniel’s care, the Minor’s Moralist Society assisted Payne’s early education. Payne was raised in the Methodist Church like his parents. He also studied at home, teaching himself mathematics, physical science, and classical languages. In 1829 at the age of 18, he opened his first school.

After the Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831, like other southern states, South Carolina passed legislation restricting the rights of people of color and slaves. They enacted a law on April 1, 1835, which made teaching literacy to free people of color and slaves illegal and subject to fines and imprisonment. With the passage of this law, Payne had to close his school.

In May 1835, Payne sailed from Charleston to Philadelphia in search of further education. Declining the Methodists’ offer, which was contingent on his going on a mission to Liberia, Payne studied at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. He did not complete ordination, having to drop out of school because of problems with eyesight.

Together with Rev. Lewis Woodson and two other African Americans representing the AME Church, and 18 white representatives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Payne served on the founding board of directors of Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856. Among the trustees who supported the abolitionist cause and African-American education was Salmon P. Chase, then governor of Ohio, who served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court under President Abraham Lincoln. The denominations jointly sponsored Wilberforce in 1856 to provide collegiate education to African Americans. It was the first historically black college in which African Americans were part of the founding.

Wilberforce was located in an area which had been a popular summer resort of white southern planters, often accompanied by their mistresses of color and multiracial children. In one of the paradoxical results of slavery, by 1860 many of the college’s 200 students were mixed-race offspring of wealthy southern planters, who paid for their children’s education in Ohio as they could not get it in the South. The men were examples of white fathers who did not abandon their mixed-race children, but passed on important social capital to them in the form of education and inheritances.

When the Civil War reduced both church support and the number of paying students, the college had to close temporarily because of financial difficulties. In 1863 Payne persuaded the AME Church to buy the debt and take over the college outright. They had to reinvest in it two years later, when a southern sympathizer damaged buildings by fire. Payne helped organize fundraising and rebuilding, including a $10,000 donation from founding board member Salmon P. Chase. Payne was selected as president, the first African-American college president in the United States. He led the college until 1877.

Payne traveled twice to Europe, where he consulted with other Methodist clergy and studied their education programs.

Daniel A. Payne and his wife.

In April 1865 Payne returned to the South for the first time in 30 years. Knowing how to build an organization, Bishop Payne took nine missionaries and worked with others in Charleston, South Carolina to establish the AME denomination. He organized missionaries, committees and teachers to bring the AME church to freedmen. A year later, the church had grown by 50,000 congregants. By the end of Reconstruction, AME congregations existed from Florida to Texas, and more than a quarter million new adherents had been brought into the church. While it had a northern center, it was heavily influenced by this growth in the South and incorporation of many who had different practices and tradition. Worship and music styles in the South reflected its people’s own culture.

Payne died on November 2, 1893, having served the AME Church for more than 50 years. The Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio is named in his honor.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dwight O. W. Holmes: 1st Black President of Morgan State

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:32:13 +0000

Morgan State University

Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes was the 6th and 1st Black President of Morgan State University, founded in 1867. He was born on November 18, 1877 in Lewisburg, West Virginia. He was the son of a minister in the Washington D.C. and New York conferences of the Methodist Church. Holmes spent his formative years in Annapolis, Maryland; New York; and Staunton, Virginia. His secondary schooling was obtained in the preparatory department of Howard University.

After completing his secondary schooling, Holmes continued at Howard University. As an undergraduate Holmes was an athlete, playing quarterback on the football team and serving as captain of both the baseball and football teams. He established and was the president of Howard’s first tennis team. He earned nine letters for athletics. In addition, Holmes organized Howard’s very first debate competition. He also led Howard’s college Mandolin and Glee Club. Holmes earned a B.A. in 1901. He was the valedictorian of his class.

The next year Holmes began his post-graduate work at Howard and then became an instructor at Sumner High School in St. Louis. In the fall of 1902 he was appointed to teach science courses in the High School of Baltimore in Maryland. While teaching high school, he simultaneously enrolled at Johns Hopkins University for classes in art and education. Holmes continued his education, earning both his MA. and Ph.D. at Columbia University. Howard University awarded Holmes an honorary MA. degree in 1912.

Chronology
1877
Born in Lewisburg, West Virginia on November 18

1901
Earns B.A. from Howard University; is valedictorian of his class

1902
Teaches at the Sumner High School in St. Louis; teaches science at the High School of Baltimore (Douglass High School)

1903
Enrolls in art and education classes at Johns Hopkins University

1909
Serves as vice principal of Douglass High School in Baltimore

1912
Granted honorary MA from Howard University

1917
Teaches education and psychology at the Miner Normal School in Washington, D.C.

1918
Becomes registrar and professor of education at Howard University

1928
Increases enrollment by one thousand students in the School of Education at Howard

1934
Publishes Read more.

Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

Did You Know?…

Morgan is the fastest-growing college in Maryland.

Over the last ten years, undergraduate enrollment at Morgan grew by more than 35 percent.
- More than $200 million has been expended on new construction and renovations throughout the campus. Construction is nearing completion on several projects, including the $40 million 2000-seat state-of-the-art Carl Murphy Fine Arts Center, the $14 million refurbishment and expansion of Hughes Stadium, and the $16 million Research Building and Greenhouse, which will offer ultramodern laboratories for physics, biology, chemistry, and biochemistry.
For four decades, Morgan has been one of the leading institutions in the Mid-Atlantic States in the production of Fulbright Scholars.
Each year Morgan produces more African-American scientists and engineers than any other institution of higher education in Maryland.
Morgan ranks first in the state in the enrollment of African-Americans in chemistry.
During a recent ten-year period, Morgan graduated 10 percent of all the African-Americans in the nation who received the bachelor’s degree in physics.
Morgan is one of the top institutions in the country with respect to the number of its African-American bachelor’s degree recipients who go on to earn graduate degrees.
Morgan receives more applications for admission from African-American high school students than almost any other college or university in the country.

Follow Morgan State University on Twitter – http://twitter.com/msutwit

[ HBCU Presidents ] Dr. Frederick D. Patterson – 3rd President of Tuskegee & Founder of UNCF

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:47:38 +0000

Dr. Frederick D. Patterson

Dr. Frederick Douglass Patterson (1901-1988) was the namesake of THE Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895) and lived in the same neighborhood, 3 blocks away, as a matter of fact. And like his namesake, he contributed a great deal to the course of education for African-Americans and other societal advancements in the United States.

At the age of 2, Frederick D. Patterson moved from DC to Austin Texas after both his parents died of tuberculosis. Distraught by the death of his parents and this transition, he faced many challenges and was voted least likely to succeed by his 8th grade classmates. Soon after, his sister took him under her wings, sacrificed, and made certain that he received a good education. She enrolled him in the elementary school of Samuel Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson College, an HBCU) in Austin, Texas – for which she paid $8 out of her $20 a month salary.

She enrolled him in the elementary school of Samuel

Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson College) in Austin, Texas for which she paid eight

dollars a month out of her 20-dollar salary.

Her investment paid! The boy’s passions for education were sparked during his years at Prairie View Normal and Industrial Institute (now Prairie View A & M University, an HBCU) when he was assigned to the Agriculture Department and began interacting with a number of top veterinarians.

Frederick Douglass Patterson would receive a stunning three advanced degrees over the next nine years. By age 31, he had achieved the Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine and the Master of Science from Iowa State, and the Doctorate of Philosophy from Cornell University. He then returned to Tuskegee Institute (now University), where he had already spent a short time teaching, as head of the Department of Agriculture and the first person on the faculty to earn the doctorate. Under his tenure, the veterinary program reached such outstanding quality that the state of Alabama granted funds for white students to study veterinary science there, a unique occurrence in the segregated South.

Dr. Patterson’s rise to academic stardom was not without its challenges. His career was infused with the juxtaposition between eloquent academic lessons and stark racial ones. Although he was the only African American in Iowa State’s veterinary program, the integrated campus would provide him with a relatively unfettered experience. However, he had to endure a humiliating situation at a summer military camp. Because he and one other African American student ate at a separate table from the white students, he was treated as a “pariah,” he wrote in his autobiography:

“I learned a lesson with regard to race that I never forgot: how people feel about you reflects the way you permit yourself to be treated. If you permit yourself to be treated differently, you are condemned to an unequal relationship.”

His range of experiences endowed Dr. Patterson with the wisdom and vision that inspired a committee to select the young man as the third president of Tuskegee Institute in 1935. His Tuskegee presidency would last nearly a quarter of a century, until 1953.

During his tenure at Tuskegee, Dr. Patterson transformed the baccalaureate institution into a prestigious university with cutting edge graduate programs, all of which are flourishing today. He founded the Commercial Dietetics program, which infused professional cooking with business and service savvy and placed African American students in unprecedented high level internships across the country. The veterinarian understandably took personal interest in the school’s Veterinary Medicine program, which afforded southern African Americans the only opportunity to become veterinarians in that region of the country. Tuskegee has graduated 75% of the nation’s African American veterinarians. His foresight into emerging fields also prompted him to spearhead the Engineering program, which from its inception enabled African Americans to gain high level technical jobs across the country.

In the late 1930’s, Dr. Patterson defied all of the political, social, and financial odds against training African American youth to fly military airplanes. Not only did he win for Tuskegee a coveted federal contract to establish a training site, but he persuaded the government to establish a full air base at Tuskegee. That accomplishment gave birth to the now legendary Tuskegee Airmen of the World War II U.S Army Corps. Nearly 1,000 African Americans completed their first training at Tuskegee Army Air Field.

As a college president, his impacts on the community extended to those at all levels of the educational spectrum. As Dr. Patterson surveyed the town of Tuskegee, the vast numbers of residents whose wooden houses were inadequate and frequently destroyed by fire struck him. Realizing the capacity of his largely vocational college, he pooled available talent and resources and created an intricate program that trained and assisted the low-income citizens in building new, sound homes made of a unique concrete construction. Methods associated with the “Tuskegee concrete block” were recognized by the federal government as a pragmatic approach to low-income housing and were adapted as models for rural homes, both domestically and internationally.

As Dr. Patterson continued to reach out to more expansive constituencies, his most farreaching initiative took flight in 1944. While searching for new methods by which private black colleges could become more financially sound, he, in 1943, published an open letter to the presidents of private HBCUs urging them to band together, pooling their resources and fundraising abilities. The next year, the United Negro College Fund, the first cooperative fund raising venture in American higher education, began its activities soliciting donations to private HBCUs, with far greater efficacy than any one of its member colleges alone. In 1964, he was elected President and Chief Executive Officer and served in both capacities until 1966. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. took immediate interest and an active role in the burgeoning organization; extraordinary leadership has propelled the organization to record heights ever since. Nearly sixty-years after its inception, UNCF remains the most successful minority higher education assistance organization in America, having raised over $2 billion for its 39 member colleges and universities and providing educational access for the nation’s African American youth.

Dr. Patterson’s prominence in higher education won him an invitation to sit on President Harry S. Truman’s President Commission from 1946-1947. That group’s findings influenced every major piece of higher education legislation during the 1960’s. Among the historic developments that evolved from the Commission were the system of community colleges and the enactment of Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which brought direct institutional support to America’s smaller colleges and universities.

Dr. Frederick D. Patterson

Of all his endeavors, Dr. Patterson’s starkest accomplishment remains the scope of the people he influenced. Over the course of his 87 years, he inspired Americans as well as African Americans. He influenced higher education policy and practice. He changed the way that philanthropy would be conducted. He generated a dynamic that pushed every organization he touched to its limit. Hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to feel the effects of Frederick D. Patterson’s work and dedication.

Less than one year before his death, he received his highest honor. On June 23, 1987, President Ronald Reagan awarded Dr. Patterson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Its inscription reads,

“By his inspiring example of personal excellence and unselfish dedication, he has taught the nation that, in this land of freedom, no mind should go to waste…”

His autobiography, Chronicles of Faith, was published in 1991.

The alumni of the member institutions now totals more than 300,000 individuals. In 1996, UNCF honored its founder through the creation of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute, the first African American led research institute in the country to focus solely on education.

He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first African-American male fraternity. Additionally, 19 colleges and universities awarded Dr. Patterson 20 honorary degrees.

UNCF HISTORY:

Do you remember their PSAs?

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Mary McLeod Bethune, Bethune-Cookman College

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:48:35 +0000

Mary Mcleod Bethune

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school for black students in Daytona Beach, Florida that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, the daughter of freed slaves, became the most influential black woman of her times in the United States. She served as president of many national organizations and held leadership appointments under Presidents Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman. She was an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Born in South Carolina to parents who had been slaves, she took an early interest in her own education. With the help of benefactors, Bethune attended college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. When that did not materialize, she started a school for black girls in Daytona Beach. From six students it grew and merged with an institute for black boys and eventually became the Bethune-Cookman School. Its quality far surpassed the standards of education for black students, and rivaled those of white schools. Bethune worked tirelessly to ensure funding for the school, and used it as a showcase for tourists and donors, to exhibit what educated black people could do. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942 and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world who served as a college president at that time.

Bethune was also active in women’s clubs, and her leadership in them allowed her to become nationally prominent. She worked for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, and became a member of Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet, sharing the concerns of black people with the Roosevelt administration while spreading Roosevelt’s message to blacks, who had been traditionally Republican voters. Upon her death, columnist Louis E. Martin said, “She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.” Her home in Daytona Beach is a National Historic Landmark, her house in Washington, D.C. in Logan Circle is preserved by the National Park Service as a National Historic Site, and a sculpture of her is located in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.

1st Black Leader & 1st women to have public monument erected

Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in New York City in 1935 bringing together 28 different organizations to form a council to facilitate the improvement of quality of life for women and their communities. About the organization, Bethune stated: “It is our pledge to make a lasting contribution to all that is finest and best in America, to cherish and enrich her heritage of freedom and progress by working for the integration of all her people regardless of race, creed, or national origin, into her spiritual, social, cultural, civic, and economic life, and thus aid her to achieve the glorious destiny of a true an unfettered democracy.” In 1938, the NCNW hosted the White House Conference on Negro Women and Children significantly displaying the presence of black women in democratic roles. They claimed their biggest impact came in getting black women into military officer roles in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II.

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Booker T. Washington, 1st President of Tuskegee

Leshell Hatley — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:55:30 +0000

Dr. Booker T. Washington - from the Library of Congress

In keeping with our feature yesterday, we turn to Tuskegee University, a HBCU established in 1881 with Dr. Booker T. Washington as its first president. He was also the 1st African-American to appear on a US stamp and coin.

Booker T. Washington was an American educator, orator, author and the dominant leader of the African-American community nationwide from the 1890s to his death. Born to slavery and freed by the Civil War in 1865, as a young man, became head of the new Tuskegee Institute, then a teachers’ college for blacks. It became his base of operations.

Tuskegee rose to national prominence under the leadership of its founder, Dr. Washington, who headed the institution from 1881 until his death at age 59 in 1915. During his tenure, institutional independence was gained in 1892, again through legislation, when Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute was granted authority to act independent of the state of Alabama.

Dr. Washington, a highly skilled organizer and fund-raiser, was counsel to American Presidents, a strong advocate of Negro business, and instrumental in the development of educational institutions throughout the South. He maintained a lifelong devotion to his institution and to his home – the South. Dr. Washington is buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near the University Chapel.

Washington was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915, especially after he achieved prominence for his “Atlanta Address of 1895“. To many politicians and the public in general, he was seen as a popular spokesman for African-American citizens. Representing the last generation of black leaders born into slavery, Washington was generally perceived as a credible proponent of education for freedmen in the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow South. Throughout the final 20 years of his life, he maintained his standing through a nationwide network of core supporters in many communities, including black educators, ministers, editors and businessmen, especially those who were liberal-thinking on social and educational issues. He gained access to top national leaders in politics, philanthropy and education, and was awarded honorary degrees. Critics called his network of supporters the “Tuskegee Machine.”

In an effort to inspire the “commercial, agricultural, educational, and industrial advancement” of African Americans, Washington founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL) in 1900.

However, this speech gained him great criticism (e.g. from W.E.B. Dubois) as he was also known as “The Great Accommodator.” Though Washington was born a slave, the scope and influence of his public life in the twentieth century rival that of Douglass in the nineteenth century. Though his career as racial spokesman was based on the idea that African Americans should eschew political agitation for civil rights in favor of industrial education and agricultural expertise, Washington’s secret activities, his attempt to exercise private influence on matters having to do with racial discrimination and segregation, suggest that his was a paradoxical life indeed. For how else are we to account for Washington’s “Atlanta Exposition Address” of 1895 and his attempts to challenge racial discrimination and segregated facilities by covert legal means?

To penetrate the mysteries swirling about the persona of Booker T. Washington, we must understand something of the times in which he lived and why the issues of African American leadership-who would lead and what kinds of political spoils they could garner for the African American community—played such an essential role in the African American’s attempt to participate fully in American life. For Washington, participation meant identifying, and being identified with, the status quo, the dominant way of thinking in American life and culture.

"Lifting the Veil" - Statue dedicated to Washington

When Washington’s autobiography, Up From Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and had a major impact on the African American community, and its friends and allies. A dinner invitation in 1901 by Theodore Roosevelt made Washington the first African-American to visit the White House as a guest of the president.

Additional Accomplishments:

For his contributions to American society, Washington was granted an honorary master’s degree from Harvard University in 1896 and an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth College in 1901.
On April 7, 1940, Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp. The first coin to feature an African American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar that was minted by the United States from 1946 to 1951. He was also depicted on a U.S. Half Dollar from 1951-1954.
At the center of the campus at Tuskegee University, the Booker T. Washington Monument, called “Lifting the Veil,” was dedicated in 1922. The inscription at its base reads: “He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry.

At the time of Washington’s death, there were 1,500 students, a $2 million endowment, 40 trades, (majors), 100 fully-equipped buildings, and about 200 faculty at Tuskegee. Dr. Washington is buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near the University Chapel.

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The Black Scholars Index » HBCU Presidents

HBCU President: Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays – Past President of Morehouse College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Thelma B. Thompson: University of Maryland Eastern Shore

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Melvin N. Johnson: Tennessee State University

[HBCU Presidents] John Brown Watson (1869–1942): University of Arkansas Pine Bluff

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Reginald S. Avery: Coppin State University’s 5th President

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Walther M. Kimbrough: Philander Smith College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. James Lowe, Jr. – Bishop State Community College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Mervyn Warren – Interim President, Oakwood University

Related External Links

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Ray L. Belton: Southern University at ShrevePort

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Michelle Howard-Vital, Cheney University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Julianna Malveau: Bennet College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Helen T. McAlpine: J.F. Drake State Technical College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Andrew Hugine: Alabama A&M University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Beverly Wade Hogan: Tougaloo College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Norris Edney (Interim President): Alcorn State University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. David Holmes Swinton: Benedict College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Eddie N. Moore: Virginia State University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Hazo W. Carter Jr: West Virginia State University

[HBCU Presidents] Michael J. Sorrell: Paul Quinn College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. George C. Bradley: Paine College

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Billy C. Hawkins: Talladega College

[HBCU Presidents] Horace Mann Bond: 1st Black President of Fort Valley State College & Lincoln University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. David Hall: University of the Virgin Islands

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Dorothy Yancy: 1st Female President of Shaw University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Ivory V. Nelson: Lincoln University

[HBCU Presidents] Donald Reaves: Chancellor of Winston-Salem State Univ.

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. JoAnn W. Haysbert: Langston University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. George C. Wright: Prairie View A&M University

[HBCU Presidents] Marvalene Hughes: Dillard University

[HBCU Presidents] Dr. Earl G. Yarbrough, Sr. – Savannah State University

[HBCU_Presidents] The Honorable Hazel R. O'Leary: Fisk University

[HBCU_Presidents] Dr. Ronald Mason: Jackson State University

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. Carolyn W. Meyers: Norfolk State University

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. James H. Ammons: Florida A&M University (FAMU)

You & All The Black Scholars in Your Life!

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Chancellor Harold Martin, NC A&T State

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dr. Charlie Nelms: North Carolina Central University

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Keith Norris: Interim President of Charles Drew University

[ HBCU_PRESIDENTS ] Dr. Mary Sias: Kentucky State University

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Daniel Payne: 1st Black College President in the US

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Dwight O. W. Holmes: 1st Black President of Morgan State

[ HBCU Presidents ] Dr. Frederick D. Patterson – 3rd President of Tuskegee & Founder of UNCF

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Mary McLeod Bethune, Bethune-Cookman College

[ HBCU_Presidents ] Booker T. Washington, 1st President of Tuskegee