Among African Nations, Nigeria Sends the Most Students to U.S. Colleges and Universities
The Institute of International Education recently released the 2010 edition of its Open Doors report, documenting the number of foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities. The report found that during the 2009-10 academic year there were 690,923 foreign students in the United States. This was a 3 percent increase from the previous year.
There were 37,062 students from Africa at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2009-10 academic year. This was slightly higher than the previous year. Nigeria sent 6,568 students to the United States, the most of any African nation. Kenya was second with 5,384 students at U.S. colleges and universities. Other black African nations sending more than 1,000 students to the United States were Ethiopia, Tanzania, Cameroon, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ghana.
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
Dean of the College of Business
Mississippi State University invites nominations and applications for the position of Dean of the College of Business. The Dean is the chief administrative officer of the College in the management of the College’s teaching, research, and service activities for both the Starkville and Meridian campuses. Further, the Dean is responsible for developing, promoting, and maintaining positive and productive relationships with constituencies external to the College and the University. The successful candidate for the position of Dean of the College of Business will lead the College and work in collaboration with the faculty and staff to formulate and effectively implement a strategic plan for the College.
All applicants must apply on-line and complete the Personal Data Information Form at www.jobs.msstate.edu materials in electronic format should also be sent to:
Dr. Lou D’Abramo, Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
Chair, Search Committee for the Dean of the College of Business
Mississippi State University
Office of the Graduate School
Box G
Mississippi State, MS 39762 ldabramo@grad.msstate.edu
Applications should include: a letter of application that includes a description of three major accomplishments achieved while in your current position; a curriculum vitae; and the names and complete contact information for five references (address, telephone numbers, and email addresses).
The search committee will begin the screening of applicants to determine candidates on January 7, 2011. Nominations and applications will continue to be accepted and screened until the position is filled.
MSU is an Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Employer
African-American Student at Indiana University Selected as a Rhodes Scholar
A Rhodes Scholarship is the most prestigious award given to college students. Winners of the Rhodes Scholarship receive an all-expenses-paid graduate education at Oxford University in England.
This year 309 colleges and universities across the United States nominated 837 students for a Rhodes Scholarship. While the Rhodes Trust does not divulge the race of scholarship winners, it appears that there is only one African American among the 32 students selected to be Rhodes Scholars. In 2009 there were four blacks among the 32 winners.
Esther Uduehi, a senior at Indiana University in Bloomington, was selected for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Uduehi, who was valedictorian at Reitz High School in Evansville, Indiana, is majoring in chemistry and mathematics. She has maintained a 3.93 grade point average as an undergraduate at Indiana University. Her parents emigrated from Nigeria in 1988, a year before she was born.
Uduehi spent one semester during her junior year studying at Oxford. She will return there next fall to pursue a graduate degree. She plans for a career in medicinal chemistry research.
Black Colleges and Universities Trail in Providing Online Degree Programs
A new report from the Sloan Consortium finds that in 2009, 5.6 million college students nationwide were enrolled in at least one online course. This is a 21 percent increase from 2008.
About one third of the nation’s higher education institutions offer degree programs online. But only 10 percent of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities have online degree programs. (Many additional HBCUs and predominantly white educational institutions offer some courses online but not complete degree programs.)
The Sloan Consortium report, entitled Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010, can be downloaded by clicking here.
Black Scholar Examines Trends in Violence Among Teenage Black Girls
Research by Nikki Jones, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, finds that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of school-age African-American girls who have been arrested on criminal charges relating to personal violence. But Dr. Jones discovered that the number of incidents of violence has not increased, just the number of arrests. Zero-tolerance policies in schools and the increasing tendency of school administrators to hand over their problems to the criminal justice system have resulted in a rapid rise in arrests, particularly for black females.
Jones’ research is published in her new book, Fighting for Girls: New Perspectives on Gender and Violence (State University of New York Press). This book builds on her earlier work on fighting among black teenage girls in Philadelphia. That work, published by Rutgers University Press in 2009, was titled Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence.
Dr. Jones holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Saint Joseph’s University. She earned a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in criminology and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been on the faculty at UCSB since 2004.
For her pioneering work, Dr. Jones recently received the New Scholar Award from the Division on Women and Crime of the American Society of Criminology.
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Faculty Positions (Tenure-Track), Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics is seeking applicants for tenure-track faculty positions with potential starts in September 2011. Department programs encompass aircraft, spacecraft, transportation, information, and communication systems. We are searching for exceptional candidates in any discipline relevant to aerospace. We are particularly interested in identifying top candidates in the following areas: aerospace materials and structures, autonomous systems, aircraft propulsion, and air transportation. Our goal is to hire candidates who have deep expertise in one or more core disciplines and who have the potential and intellectual flexibility to become world leaders through integration of these disciplines to define and address new opportunities. Faculty duties include teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, research, and supervision of student research. Further information on this search and Department may be found at http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/about/jobs.html.
Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics or a related field by the beginning of the appointment period. The search is for the Assistant Professor level, but qualified candidates at all levels will be considered.
Applications must be submitted in PDF format online at https://facsearch.mit.edu. Applicants must submit a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, a 2-3 page statement of research and teaching interests and goals, and the names and contact information of at least three individuals who will provide letters of recommendation. Applicants should request that letters of recommendation be submitted online at https://facsearch.mit.edu by the recommenders. Applications should be addressed to Professor David W. Miller, Chair, Faculty Search Committee, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Applications will be considered complete when both the applicant's materials and at least three letters of recommendation are received. Applicants are encouraged to apply by January 1, 2011.
MIT is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply.
M. Christopher Brown II was named president of Alcorn State University in Mississippi. He has served as executive vice president and provost at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to his appointment at Fisk, he was dean of the College of Education at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
Dr. Brown is a graduate of South Carolina State University. He earned a master’s degree in educational policy and evaluation from the University of Kentucky and a doctorate in higher education from Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Brown is the author or editor of 15 books including his most recent works, The Broken Cisterns of African American Education and The Case for Affirmative Action on Campus. He has held faculty positions at Penn State, the University of Illinois, and the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Recent Books That May Be of Interest to African-American Scholars
The JBHE Weekly Bulletin regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. Here are the latest selections.
• African Diaspora Identities: Negotiating Culture in Transnational Migration by John A. Arthur (Lexington Books)
• After the Dream: Black and White Southerners Since 1965 by Timothy J. Minchin and John A. Salmond (University of Kentucky Press)
• Border War: Fighting Over Slavery Before the Civil War by Stanley Harold (University of North Carolina Press)
• Constructing Affirmative Action: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity by David Hamilton Golland (University of Kentucky Press)
• Family of Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House by Kenneth T. Walsh (Paradigm Publishers)
• Forever Doo-Wop: Race, Nostalgia, and Vocal Harmony by John Michael Runowicz (University of Massachusetts Press)
• Freud Upside Down: African American Literature and Psychoanalytic Culture by Badia Sahar Ahad (University of Illinois Press)
• Fugitive Slave on Trial: The Anthony Burns Case and Abolitionist Outrage by Earl M. Maltz (University Press of Kansas)
• Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC edited by Faith S. Holsaert et al. (University of Illinois Press)
• Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone by Ralph Richard Banks (Dutton Books)
• Jim Crow’s Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945 by R.A. Lawson (Louisiana State University Press)
• No Safe Spaces: Re-Casting Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in American Theater by Angela C. Pao (University of Michigan Press)
• Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars by Shane White et al. (Harvard University Press)
• Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California by Daniel Martinez HoSang (University of California Press)
• Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South by Kristina DuRocher (University of Kentucky Press)
• Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky: A Narrative by Francis Fedric, Escaped Slave edited by C.L. Innes (Louisiana State University Press)
• The Black History of the White House by Clarence Lusane (City Lights Publishers)
• The Fiction of Gloria Naylor: Houses and Spaces of Resistance by Maxine Lavon Montgomery (University of Tennessee Press)
• The Philosophy of Spike Lee by Mark T. Conard (University of Kentucky Press)
• The Politics of Paul Robeson’s Othello by Lindsey R. Swindall (University Press of Mississippi)
• The Quarters and the Fields: Slave Families in the Non-Cotton South by Damian Alan Pargas (University Press of Florida)
ACADEMY FOR EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Career and Technical Education (CTE) Specialist
The AED National Institute for Work and Learning (NIWL) is seeking a Program Officer II to work closely with the Senior Program Manager and Policy Director, and NIWL staff on a variety of activities related to the implementation of major projects and proposal development. The ideal candidate will also be responsible for supporting education and workforce development projects related to career and technical education (CTE) policy and practice, as well as providing technical assistance and research support on related projects (CTE, workforce development, and k-16 education reform).
What we need from you:
1. At least five years state or national experience in CTE policy, practice, or research
2. Strong writing, research, and analytical skills
3. Ability to juggle multiple projects with competing deadlines and demands.
Interested applicants should apply online or send resume with cover letter referencing position(s) #CC10483 to: AED/HR, 1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. For additional information, visit our website at http://www.aed.org.
We thank all individuals for their interest in AED, however only those selected for interviews will be contacted. AA/EOE/M/F/D/V
Honors and Awards
• Jinx Coleman Broussard, the William Dickinson Distinguished Professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, was inducted into the Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Dr. Broussard earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at LSU and a Ph.D. in mass communications at the University of Southern Mississippi.
• The city of Atlanta recently changed the name of a portion of Fair Street to Atlanta Student Movement Boulevard. The name change honors the college students from the city who were instrumental in tearing down Jim Crow segregation in Atlanta.
• Maya Angelou, author, poet, and Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, will be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom next month in Washington, D.C. Professor Angelou is one of 15 recipients of the award. Other African Americans who will be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom are Congressman John Lewis and basketball legend Bill Russell.
• The Black Student Union at Peru State College in Nebraska was awarded the 2010 Governor’s Points of Light Award by Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman. The student group was honored for its volunteer efforts in the community.
Blacks make up 2 percent of the undergraduate student body at the college.
• J. Marshall Shepherd, associate professor of geography at the University of Georgia, won the Charles E. Anderson Award from the American Meteorological Society. The award is given to a scholar who has promoted diversity in the atmospheric sciences.
Dr. Shepherd holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Florida State University. He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in meteorology at Florida State.
Among the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Universities, Harvard Reports the Best Black Student Yield
So-called yield, the percentage of applicants who decide to go to a college that issues an invitation to them, has become the standard measure of an institution’s strength and drawing power. For most of the past 20 years Harvard University has been the nation’s gold standard in student yield percentage for both black and white students. In seven of the past 10 years, the JBHE annual survey has shown that Harvard has had the best performance in black student yield among the nation’s 30 highest-ranked universities. Among this elite group of universities Stanford had the highest black student yield twice and one year MIT was the top performer.
Despite the fact that its black student yield dropped from 71 percent in 2009 to 64 percent this year, Harvard once again leads the pack. MIT comes in a close second with a black student yield of 63.2 percent. Stanford was third with a black student yield of 60.6 percent.
The only other high-ranking university reporting a black student yield greater than 50 percent in 2010 is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A number of the highest-ranked universities, including Yale, Princeton, and Duke, decline to divulge their black student yields.
Strong Growth in Black Enrollments at Georgia’s Public Universities: But Blacks Still Underrepresented at High-Ranking Institutions
The University System of Georgia reports an all-time high in student enrollments this fall of 311,442. This is an increase of 3.2 percent from a year ago. Over the past five years the 35 colleges and universities in the Georgia system have seen an overall increase in enrollments of more than 51,000 students.
Black enrollments at the University System of Georgia institutions are up 5.1 percent this year. There are now 84,106 black students enrolled systemwide. They make up 27 percent of the total enrollments. This is near parity with the black college-age population in the state.
All three of the state’s historically black universities — Fort Valley State, Albany State, and Savannah State — saw significant growth in enrollments. Blacks make up 85 percent or more of all students at these three state universities.
However, blacks are still grossly underrepresented at the state flagship campus in Athens. The latest data shows there are 2,681 black students at the University of Georgia. They make up 7.7 percent of the student body.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, blacks are 6 percent of the total enrollments.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON
Founding Dean, College of Health and Human Services
The University of North Carolina Wilmington seeks applications and nominations for the position of Founding Dean of the College of Health and Human Services. UNCW is creating a new, unified administrative unit to lead its efforts to improve the health and wellness of the people and communities of its service region.
The Dean of the College of Health and Human Services will lead an interdisciplinary and integrated academic division that includes schools of nursing, social work, and health and applied human sciences. Programs include bachelor’s degrees in nursing, clinical research, social work, athletic training, community health, exercise science, gerontology, physical education, parks and recreation management, and recreation therapy; and master’s degrees in nursing and clinical social work.
As the head of the college, the dean will work collaboratively with faculty from these units to ensure a comprehensive, coherent, challenging, and interdisciplinary curriculum; an excellent faculty; focused research; exemplary teaching and learning practices; and innovative and sustainable regional engagement and application. The new college will significantly enhance collaboration not only among the academic professional education programs brought together under its roof but also with the wide array of disciplines that have instructional, research or application areas with implications for health.
Minimum qualifications include at least five years of experience as an academic dean or comparable senior level officer, a demonstrated history of strong leadership and successful implementation of complex initiatives, and network development in the health service area.
An earned doctorate in an academic discipline related to health and human services from an accredited institution is preferred.
For more information, please visit http://www.uncw.edu/hr/CHHSdean. Priority consideration will be given to online applications received by December 15, 2010, but they will be accepted until the position is filled.
A Mixed Bag of Reader Predictions
JBHE thanks all of our readers who participate in our weekly polls. The results are not scientific but are nevertheless interesting.
In recent weeks, JBHE readers correctly predicted that voters in Arizona would pass a public referendum banning race-sensitive admissions at public universities in the state. But only 30 percent of readers responding to our poll correctly predicted the outcome of the midterm elections with the GOP taking control of the House but the Democrats holding the Senate.
Surprisingly the percentage of readers believing Barack Obama will be reelected president in 2012 increased significantly in a poll taken after the midterm elections compared to a poll taken this past summer.
Kofi Lomotey Steps Down From Chancellorship of Southern University
Kofi Lomotey has announced that he will step down as chancellor of Southern University at Baton Rouge at the end of the academic year. The resignation came on the eve of a board meeting that was to consider whether to extend the chancellor’s contract. In November the faculty senate approved a vote of “no confidence” in Lomotey.
Prior to coming to Southern University in 2008, Dr. Lomotey was provost and executive vice president at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Previously, he served as president of Fort Valley State University in Georgia. He also has been a member of the faculty at Medgar Evers College, Louisiana State University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has also served as editor of the journal Urban Education.
Dr. Lomotey is a graduate of Oberlin College. He holds a master’s degree from Cleveland State University and a second master’s degree and a doctorate from Stanford University.
Students Protest Black Studies Budget Cuts at the University of Texas
Students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin mounted campus demonstrations protesting proposed budget cuts to the Center for African and African-American Studies and other ethnic studies programs. Initially the proposed cuts amounted to 41 percent of the center’s total budget but the administration subsequently restored some of the funding.
At one point the protesters chanted, “Let’s just face it. These cuts are racist.” About 150 people participated in the demonstration which remained peaceful. No arrests were made.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
Executive Director, Duke Cancer Institute
Duke Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine and Duke University Health System seek a visionary leader as the Executive Director of the newly established Duke Cancer Institute (DCI). The DCI is a single, multi-disciplinary entity that integrates and aligns cancer-related patient care and research with goals to improve patient outcomes, accelerate scientific progress, and create leadership that promotes communication, accountability and transparency across Duke Medicine. The DCI encompasses one of only 40 comprehensive cancer centers nationwide designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Candidates for the Executive Director position should have a strong background in academic medicine, with a record of excellence in patient care and research, and significant leadership experience in an academic medical center setting. He/she should be an internationally recognized physician scientist with outstanding achievement in cancer research and a record of independent, peer-reviewed, extramural funding. Candidates should have a deep commitment to and understanding of science spanning basic, translational and clinical research. Although a candidate’s research is likely to be focused in a specific area of cancer research, candidates should have an appreciation for the breadth of the discipline and for the research process underlying basic, translational and clinical oncology.
The successful candidate should have an MD or MD/PhD, academic credentials that qualify for appointment at the level of Full Professor with tenure, board certification in his/her respective specialty and eligibility for a license to practice medicine in North Carolina.
Interested individuals should submit a statement of interest and a curriculum vitae to:
Barton F. Haynes, M.D.
Chair, Search Committee
Frederic M. Hanes Professor of Medicine and Immunology
c/o SpencerStuart
Alexis Stiles, Account Manager
One Commerce Square
2005 Market Street, Suite 2350
Philadelphia, PA 19013 DCI@spencerstuart.com
dd +1 215.814.1615
Duke University & Health System is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
In Memoriam
Carolyn D. Yancey (1921-2010)
Carolyn D. Yancey, who served for 27 years on the board of trustees of Spelman College, has died at her home in Atlanta. She was 89 years old.
A native of Detroit, Yancey earned a bachelor’s degree in education and social work from Wayne State University. Her husband, Asa G. Yancey Sr., was the first African American on the faculty of the Emory University medical school. Mrs. Yancey simultaneously served on the Spelman board, the Atlanta Board of Education, and the state Board of Regents. She was the first African-American woman to serve on the state board.
Appointments, Promotions, and Resignations
• Mary Evans Sias, president of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, was named chair of the board of directors of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The association represents 218 universities in all 50 states. Eighteen of the members are historically black universities.
• Carl H. Davis, co-founder of the Ladera Group of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Torrance, California, was appointed to the board of directors of Antioch University in Los Angeles.
• Donna N. Williams, vice president and program manager at Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Inc., was elected vice chair of the board of regents of the Texas State University system. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Prairie View A&M University.
• Samuel Harrison was appointed interim associate vice chancellor for the division of information technology at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. He has been serving as assistant chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering.
Harrison is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University and holds an MBA from Duke University.
• Battinto L. Batts Jr. was named director of the William R. Harvey Leadership Institute at Hampton University in Virginia. Since 2007 Batts has served as an assistant professor at the university’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
Batts is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and holds a master’s degree in media management from Norfolk State University.
• George E. Cooper, president of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, was appointed chair of the Council of 1890 Universities. The council consists of presidents of historically black land grant universities.
Dr. Cooper is a graduate of Florida A&M University. He holds a master’s degree in animal science from Tuskegee University and a Ph.D. in animal nutrition from the University of Illinois.
Grants and Gifts
• The University of Maryland Eastern Shore received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study water quality in coastal bays. The study will examine oxygen levels in the water and the growth of harmful algae and what effect they have on fish populations.
The project will be under the direction of Paulinus Chigbu, director of the historically black university’s Paul S. Sarbanes Coastal Ecology Center. Dr. Chigbu holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Benin and a Ph.D. in fisheries science from the University of Washington.
• Hampton University, the historically black educational institution in Virginia, received a $93,000 grant from the Lockheed Martin Corporation for a research project that will examine designs to allow aircraft to fly at higher speeds. The research will be under the direction of Morris H. Morgan III, professor of engineering at Hampton University.
• Historically black Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina received a $100,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund a study of cardiovascular disease risk in low-income minority families.
• Morgan State University in Baltimore received a $365,000 grant from the Travelers Companies to continue support for the university’s actuarial science degree program. Morgan State is the only university in Maryland and the only historically black university nationwide to award degrees in actuarial science.
• The School of Nursing at North Carolina A&T State University, the historically black educational institution in Greensboro, received a $123,750 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. The grant will fund a part-time faculty position and a full-time administrator for the school’s Accelerated Option for Second Degree Students program.
Past Issues - JBHE Weekly Bulletin (select from menu below)
The Institute of International Education recently released the 2010 edition of its Open Doors report, documenting the number of foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities. The report found that during the 2009-10 academic year there were 690,923 foreign students in the United States. This was a 3 percent increase from the previous year.
Esther Uduehi, a senior at Indiana University in Bloomington, was selected for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Uduehi, who was valedictorian at Reitz High School in Evansville, Indiana, is majoring in chemistry and mathematics. She has maintained a 3.93 grade point average as an undergraduate at Indiana University. Her parents emigrated from Nigeria in 1988, a year before she was born.
A new report from the Sloan Consortium finds that in 2009, 5.6 million college students nationwide were enrolled in at least one online course. This is a 21 percent increase from 2008.
Research by Nikki Jones, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, finds that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of school-age African-American girls who have been arrested on criminal charges relating to personal violence. But Dr. Jones discovered that the number of incidents of violence has not increased, just the number of arrests. Zero-tolerance policies in schools and the increasing tendency of school administrators to hand over their problems to the criminal justice system have resulted in a rapid rise in arrests, particularly for black females.
M. Christopher Brown II was named president of Alcorn State University in Mississippi. He has served as executive vice president and provost at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to his appointment at Fisk, he was dean of the College of Education at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
The JBHE Weekly Bulletin regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. Here are the latest selections.
• Jinx Coleman Broussard, the William Dickinson Distinguished Professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, was inducted into the Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Southern Mississippi.
• Maya Angelou, author, poet, and Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, will be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom next month in Washington, D.C. Professor Angelou is one of 15 recipients of the award. Other African Americans who will be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom are Congressman John Lewis and basketball legend Bill Russell.
• J. Marshall Shepherd, associate professor of geography at the University of Georgia, won the Charles E. Anderson Award from the American Meteorological Society. The award is given to a scholar who has promoted diversity in the atmospheric sciences.
The University System of Georgia reports an all-time high in student enrollments this fall of 311,442. This is an increase of 3.2 percent from a year ago. Over the past five years the 35 colleges and universities in the Georgia system have seen an overall increase in enrollments of more than 51,000 students.
JBHE thanks all of our readers who participate in our weekly polls. The results are not scientific but are nevertheless interesting.
Kofi Lomotey has announced that he will step down as chancellor of Southern University at Baton Rouge at the end of the academic year. The resignation came on the eve of a board meeting that was to consider whether to extend the chancellor’s contract. In November the faculty senate approved a vote of “no confidence” in Lomotey.
Students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin mounted campus demonstrations protesting proposed budget cuts to the Center for African and African-American Studies and other ethnic studies programs. Initially the proposed cuts amounted to 41 percent of the center’s total budget but the administration subsequently restored some of the funding.
• Mary Evans Sias, president of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, was named chair of the board of directors of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The association represents 218 universities in all 50 states. Eighteen of the members are historically black universities.
• Carl H. Davis, co-founder of the Ladera Group of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Torrance, California, was appointed to the board of directors of Antioch University in Los Angeles.
• Donna N. Williams, vice president and program manager at Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Inc., was elected vice chair of the board of regents of the Texas State University system. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Prairie View A&M University.
• Samuel Harrison was appointed interim associate vice chancellor for the division of information technology at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. He has been serving as assistant chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering.
• Battinto L. Batts Jr. was named director of the William R. Harvey Leadership Institute at Hampton University in Virginia. Since 2007 Batts has served as an assistant professor at the university’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
• George E. Cooper, president of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, was appointed chair of the Council of 1890 Universities. The council consists of presidents of historically black land grant universities.
The project will be under the direction of Paulinus Chigbu, director of the historically black university’s Paul S. Sarbanes Coastal Ecology Center. Dr. Chigbu holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Benin and a Ph.D. in fisheries science from the University of Washington.
• Hampton University, the historically black educational institution in Virginia, received a $93,000 grant from the Lockheed Martin Corporation for a research project that will examine designs to allow aircraft to fly at higher speeds. The research will be under the direction of Morris H. Morgan III, professor of engineering at Hampton University.