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.

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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.

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Take a look at him briefly describing their findings:

Read more about the study here.

What’s your immediate reaction to the results of this study?

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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.

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The preeminent African American intellectual of his generation, Alain Locke was the leading promoter and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans to American life. More than anyone else, he familiarized white Americans with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, while encouraging African American authors to set high artistic standards in their depiction of life. As a professor of philosophy, he expounded his theory of “cultural pluralism” that valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.

Early Life

Locke was born into a prominent Philadelphia family in 1886. Six years later his father died, and his mother supported her son through teaching. Young Alain contracted rheumatic fever early in his childhood. The disease permanently damaged his heart and restricted his physical activities. In their place, he spent his time reading books and learning to play the piano and violin.

Education

Locke attended Central High School, graduating second in the class of 1902, and then studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, where he moved up to first in his class. Entering Harvard University, he studied under William James and some of the other leading American philosophers on the faculty. Locke completed Harvard’s four-year program in three, graduating magna cum laude in 1907, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and winning the school’s most prestigious award, the Bowdoin Prize, for an essay in English.

It was a remarkable achievement for anyone, not to mention an African American during this highly segregated era. While many white American scholars were seeking to prove the intellectual inferiority of African Americans to justify racial segregation, Locke became a symbol of achievement and a powerful argument for offering African Americans equal opportunity at white educational institutions.

First Black Rhodes Scholar

Continuing his intellectual accomplishments, Locke was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American chosen for this distinguished award, and sailed to England in 1907 to attend Oxford University. He studied philosophy, Greek, and Literae Humaniores, receiving a bachelor of literature degree in 1910. From Oxford he moved to Germany for advanced work in philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1910 to 1911.

Europe at that time was the acknowledged center of Western civilization, and Locke’s years there proved vital to his intellectual development. His exposure to modern literature, music, art, and dance, along with his meeting many Africans and other nonwhites from around the world, created new perspectives for viewing American society and culture. Racial discrimination, he realized, was a global problem.

Books By and About Alain Locke:

Became an Educator

Returning to the United States in early 1912, Locke was faced with an unusual dilemma. Given his academic training and intellectual experiences, he was more qualified than many white college professors. But because of his race, he was unable to teach at a white college. Yet this same level of achievement set him vastly apart from his fellow African Americans.

Being unusually introspective and perceptive, Locke recognized these limitations. To better familiarize himself with the everyday segregated world of America, he took a six-month tour of the southern states. Witnessing widespread prejudice and discrimination, he decided that only by setting high standards and demonstrating similar accomplishments as whites could African Americans gain respect and equality. By teaching at the college level and promoting African and African American culture, he would further this goal.

Alain Locke

That September, Locke was appointed an assistant professor of English at Howard University, an African American college, in Washington, DC. He set about to establish Howard as the country’s preeminent African American university, a training ground for African American intellectuals, and a center for African American culture and research on racial problems. But the school’s board of trustees twice refused to approve his teaching courses on comparative race relations or African American studies, maintaining that the Howard was a nonracial institution.

Frustrated, Locke turned his attention back to philosophy. In 1916, he received a one-year appointment as an Austin Teaching Fellow at Harvard and began his dissertation under the idealist philosopher, Josiah Royce. Two years later he received his doctorate degree and returned to Howard as a full professor of philosophy. He would chair this department until his retirement in 1953.

Stressed Blacks’ Contribution to Egypt

Locke became one of the leading members of the Howard faculty as well as a major inspiration to the student body and the growing national African American self-awareness movement of the 1920s. In 1924, he took a sabbatical leave to work with the French Oriental Archaeological Society in Egypt and the Sudan. His experiences there, including his presence at the reopening of Tutankhamen’s tomb, reinforced his belief in the strong historic and cultural roots of African civilization. Lecturing widely upon his return to the United States, Locke stressed the contribution of Africans to Egypt’s multiracial society, the world’s first advanced civilization, a contribution not widely acknowledged by white scholars.

Locke’s return to Howard coincided with a power struggle between the predominantly black student body and faculty, who desired a more African American-oriented institution, against the university’s white president and board of trustees who sought to maintain its traditional nonracial status. Along with several other professors, Locke was dismissed in 1925, ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure. That September, he expressed his views in a Survey Graphic magazine article, “Negro Education Bids for Par,” stating that African American education,

“to the extent that it is separate, ought to be free to develop its own racial interests and special aims for both positive and compensatory reasons.”

A storm of protest by the student body, alumni, national African American press, and fellow academics compelled the board to eventually reinstate him with full pay. But Locke did not return to teach on campus until 1928 with the installation of Howard’s first African American president, Mordecai W. Johnson, who shared his goals of creating a predominantly African American university.

Alain Locke

These years of temporary release from his academic duties proved to be among Locke’s most productive periods. A major contributor to Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life and Survey Graphic, he edited a special issue of the latter publication devoted to the Harlem Renaissance, the flourishing of African American art, literature, and music in New York City during the 1920s. Expanding it into a book and shifting the focus from Harlem to overall African American cultural life, Locke authored The New Negro: An Interpretation in 1925. It was an outstanding anthology of the leading African American fiction, poetry, drama, and essays by himself and others describing the changing state of race relations in the United States.

The New Negro became the symbol of a new era, documenting the social and cultural innovations of the younger African American generation. It contributed to a growing race consciousness, self confidence, and sophistication of an increasingly urbanized African American population. In his foreword, Locke asserted that African American life was “not only establishing new contacts and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul.” He compared this movement with similar efforts taking place around the globe in Russia, India, China, Palestine, and many other countries.

Because of his efforts, white critics began to take African American writing seriously, and African American writers saw themselves for the first time as part of a broad but unified literary movement. Most Harlem Renaissance artists sought not only to develop their work into high art, but also to use it as a means to better race relations and American society.

With the success of The New Negro, Locke became the leading authority on contemporary African American culture and used his position to promote the careers of young artists and authors like Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. He encouraged them to seek out subjects in African American life and to set high artistic standards for themselves. Writing in a Black World essay entitled “Alain Locke: Cultural and Social Mentor,” Richard A. Long stated, it is “no exaggeration to say that the Harlem Renaissance as we know it is marked strongly by the presence of Alain Locke, and would have been something rather different without him and the role of mentor which he filled with modesty and elegance.”

More can be read about Alain Locke here, courtesy of africawithin.com.

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Carol S. Parham serves as Associate Chair and Professor of Practice at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. Before taking the position at the University of Maryland, Dr. Parham served for over eight years as Superintendent of Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland. The first woman to serve in this position and the first African American, she was the chief county school officer for a 75,000 student school system, providing leadership to more than 8,000 employees. In her role, she led the fifth largest school district in Maryland and the 43rd largest in the nation.

Education

Formerly employed by Baltimore City Public Schools and Howard County Public Schools, Dr. Parham is a graduate of the University of Maryland where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in social studies education. She also received a Master of Arts degree in Education and Counseling and an Advanced Studies Degree in Education Administration from The Johns Hopkins University and a Doctorate of Education from the University of Maryland.

Career

In her work at the University of Maryland, Dr. Parham has designed and implemented a field-based doctoral program in partnership with the Montgomery County Public Schools. The program, Maryland Program for Excellence in Leadership (MPEL), is now in its fifth year and has two operational cohorts.

Dr. Parham also teaches a variety of leadership courses and regularly advises students in the leadership program. She was recently appointed as chair of the University of Maryland’s President’s Commission on Women’s Issues for the period 2008-2010 and also serves as Co-Advisor for the Black Graduate Student Association. In 2004, she was inducted into the University of Maryland chapter of the Sigma Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society.

Aside from her work at the University of Maryland, Dr. Parham participates actively in many professional organizations. She has served as President of the Washington Area School Study Council, the Association of School Business Officials of Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the Public School Superintendents Association of Maryland. She is a long time member of the North Arundel Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She is a member of the Board of Trustees of McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College) and in 2006, was elected to the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church, USA.

Awards

Dr. Parham has received many honors and recognitions over the past years, including selection on three occasions as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women by Warfield’s Business Record. She received the Maryland State Teachers’ Association Outstanding Achievement in Leadership Award; the Woman of the Year Award from the Glen Burnie Chapter of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women; the “First Women” award presented by the YWCA of Anne Arundel County and the Anne Arundel County government, and the Paul D. Bell Award for her years of service with the Association of Business Officials of Maryland-DC. She is also a recipient of the Martin Luther King Peacemaker Award, the Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Award for Excellence to Outstanding Maryland Women in Government Service, and is featured in the book entitled Women in Maryland History. She also received the Chair’s Award for the Excellence for Minority Achievement Awards from the Maryland State Department of Education. In the Spring of 2002, Dr. Parham was honored with the dedication of the Dr. Carol Sheffey Parham Building as the administrative headquarters of the Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

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Dr. Geneva Gay is a professor of education at the University of Washington-Seattle, where she teaches multicultural education and general curriculum theory. She is nationally and internationally known for her scholarship in multicultural education, particularly as it relates to curriculum design, staff development, classroom instruction and intersections of culture, race, ethnicity, teaching and learning.

Awards

She is the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award, presented by the Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities in Educational Research and Development of the American Educational Research Association; the first Multicultural Educator Award presented by the National Association of Multicultural Education; the 2004 W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Lecturer Award presented by the Special Interest Group on Research Focus on Black Education of the American Educational Research Association; and the 2006 Mary Anne Raywid Award for Distinguished Scholarship in the Field of Education, presented by the Society of Professors of Education.

Author

Dr. Gay has written a number of books and book chapters, including A Synthesis of Scholarship in Multicultural Education; the co-editorship of Expressively Black: The Cultural Basis of Ethnic Identity (Praeger, 1987); author of At the Essence of Learning: Multicultural Education (Kappa Delta Pi, 1994), and Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Practice, & Research (Teachers College Press, 2000); and editor of Becoming Multicultural Educators: Personal Journey Toward Professional Agency (Jossey-Bass, 2003). Culturally Responsive Teaching received the 2001 Outstanding Writing Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).

Service

Dr. Geneva Gay professional service includes membership on several national editorial review and advisory boards. International consultations on multicultural education have taken her to Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Finland, Japan, England, Scotland, and Australia.

She works with Scott Foresman as a member of the authorship team for its New Elementary Social Studies Series.

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Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., is the fourth president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a position she assumed in January 2003. She originally joined the staff in April 2001 as the senior vice president and director, Health Care Group. In 2004, she was voted #22 of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes Magazine.

Prior to coming to the Foundation, Lavizzo-Mourey was the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as director of the Institute on Aging. She was the deputy administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research now known as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality within the Department of Health and Human Services. While in government service, Lavizzo-Mourey worked on the White House Health Care Policy team, including the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform where she co-chaired the working group on Quality of Care.

Lavizzo-Mourey has served on many federal advisory committees, including the Task Force on Aging Research; the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Minority Populations; and the President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. She recently completed work as co-director of a congressionally requested Institute of Medicine study on racial disparities in health care resulting in the publication of Unequal Treatment, Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. She is the author of scores of articles and several books.

Listen to Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey talk about Childhood Obesity on WashingtonPost.com

Lavizzo-Mourey is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. She is the recipient of eight honorary doctorates and numerous other awards, including those received from the Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Health and Human Services, The National Academy of Sciences, American College of Physicians, National Library of Medicine, American Medical Women’s Association, National Medical Association and University of Pennsylvania.

Lavizzo-Mourey earned a medical degree at Harvard Medical School, followed by a master of business administration at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. After completing a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her geriatrics training.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducts research and provides support in the following areas:

Visit their website for more information on their impact across the nation via the organization’s assessment report. They have an awesome website overall and a neat slide presentation builder used to help export data and create slideshows for website visitors.

Follow them on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rwjf

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If you want someone specific featured on The Black Scholars Index, please let us know – featured@blackscholarsindex.com.

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