Monthly Archives: October 2013
Everette Freeman Named President of the Community College of Denver
Since 2005, Dr. Freeman has been president of Albany State University in Georgia. He will take on his new role as president of the Community College of Denver beginning November 1.
University of Illinois Acquires the Papers of Poet Gwendolyn Brooks
The collection includes 150 boxes of manuscripts, drafts, journals, letters, scrapbooks, and awards. Also among the archives are the meticulous notes of everything Brooks ate for last 20 years of her life.
Archie Holmes Named Associate Provost at the University of Virginia
Archie Holmes, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia, has been given the additional duties of associate provost for the undergraduate educational experience.
Jeffery Burgin Named Dean of Students at Belmont University
Dr. Burgin has been serving as vice president for student affairs at Alabama A&M University. He will begin his new duties on December 1.
Census Data Shows Need for Further Efforts to Attract Blacks Into STEM Fields
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that while while Blacks are 10.8 percent of all employed workers, they make up only 6.4 percent of all employees in STEM occupations. Blacks make up an even smaller percentage of all workers in specific STEM jobs.
Barnard College Elevates Africana Studies to Department Status
Barnard College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in New York City, has elevated its African Studies Program to a full academic department.
Two Black Women in New Teaching Roles
Nobel Peach Prize winner Leymah Gbowee was named the inaugural Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College. Stacy Finley was hired to the biomedical engineering faculty at the University of Southern California.
Honors for Two Black Educators in Mississippi
Mary L. Vaughn of Mississippi State is being honored by the National College Testing Association and Paul Tchounwou of Jackson State will be presented with an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Four African Americans Appointed to New Administrative Positions
The new appointees are Jerald Woolfolk Adley at SUNY Oswego, Ivan L. Harrell III at Lone Star College-CyFair, Eric V. Hilton at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, and Joyce Q. Rogers at Indiana University.
In Memoriam: Leslie Woodard, 1960-2013
Leslie Woodard was a lecturer in English and creative writing and dean of Calhoun College at Yale University. Before joining the faculty at Yale, she was the director of undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University in New York City.
Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers
From time to time, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week's selections.
Recent Books That May Be of Interest to African American Scholars
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. Here are the latest selections.
University Project Aims to Restore Minorities’ Trust in Medical Research
A new project at the University of Maryland, entitled Building Trust Between Minorities and Researchers, offers information targeted at minorities about participation in research and clinical trials.
UAB Professor Gives Back to His Native Nigeria
Tolu Aduroja, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Alabama Birmingham, returns to Nigeria each fall at his own expense and provides free health care to patients at a clinic in Ibadan.
Higher Education Grants of Interest to African Americans
Here is this week’s news of grants to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
The Rebranding of the Martin Luther King Center at the University of Kentucky
The Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center at the University of Kentucky has been renamed the Martin Luther King Center and has revamped its mission to the university.
In Memoriam: Devenia Victoria Pinder Wallace, 1919-2013
Devenia Wallace joined the faculty at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in the late 1950s. She served as chair of the home economics department, now known as the department of human ecology.
Michigan State University Begins Jazz Artist-in-Residence Program
The first artist-in-residence will be saxophonist Antonio Hart. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and is a professor at Queens College, a campus of the City University of New York system.
Honoring a Key Figure in Efforts to Racially Integrate the University of Delaware
The University of Delaware recently held a ceremony on campus to dedicate a dormitory to honor the memory of Louis L. Redding. He successfully argued the 1950 court case that led to the admission of African American students to the university.
University Survey Examines Poverty in Africa
The Afrobarometer was co-founded by Michael Bratton, a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Nearly half of all African respondents this year said that they go without food, medicine, or drinking water at least occasionally.
Cornell Report Analyzes Student Views on Diversity
The report found that "students who identify with historically less-represented groups are more actively involved in diversity-related behaviors and have more negative perceptions of the climate for diversity."
William B. Bynum Jr. Named President at Mississippi Valley State University
Dr. Bynum, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Duke University, has been serving as vice president for enrollment management and student services at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
University Study Finds Racial Minorities Are Not in the Inner-Circle of Corporate Directors
The study by researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas San Antonio finds that racial minorities make up 28 percent of the corporate directors who serve on a single board but are only 8 percent of the corporate directors who serve on more than one board.
Yolanda Cooper Named University Librarian at Emory
She has been serving as an associate professor, deputy university librarian, and acting dean and university librarian at the University of Miami in Florida.
Faculty at Harris-Stowe State University Vote to Unionize
Nearly four out of every five faculty members participating in the election voted to join the union. The historically Black educational institution is the first university in Missouri to vote in a union for faculty members.
Jazz Educator Honored at the Kennedy Center
Nathan Davis, professor emeritus of music at the University of Pittsburgh, received the BNY Mellon Jazz 2013 Living Legacy Award honoring jazz masters who have achieved distinction in jazz performance and education.
Explaining Howard University’s Drop in the U.S. News Rankings
In 2010 Howard University was ranked in 96th position in the ratings for the Best National Universities by U.S. News and World Report. This year the university was in 142nd place.
Howard O. Gibson Named to Student Affairs Post
Howard O. Gibson is the new associate vice president for student affairs, enrollment management, and diversity at Mississippi Valley State University. He was the executive assistant to the chancellor at Baton Rouge Community College in Louisiana.
Center for Health Equity to Debut at Florida A&M University
The center will establish a new approach to identifying and solving problems related to health disparities and will involve pharmacy faculty working cooperatively with nursing, psychology, social work, medicine and public health faculty at the university.
Two Black Scholars in New Teaching Roles
LaFleur Stephens will join the Princeton faculty next summer as an assistant professor of politics. Chapurukha Kusimba is the new chair of the department of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C.
In Memoriam: Lee Thornton, 1942-2013
Dr. Thornton was the first African American woman to serve as a White House correspondent for a major news network. She taught at Howard University for 14 years and was interim dean of the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers
From time to time, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week's selections.
Recent Books That May Be of Interest to African American Scholars
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. Here are the latest selections.
A Legal Victory for HBCUs in Maryland
A federal judge has ruled that the state of Maryland has made it difficult for its four historically Black universities to succeed by permitting nearby predominantly White universities to have similar and competing academic programs.
Nontombi Naomi Tutu Wins Social Justice Award
Nontombi Naomi Tutu, a student at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School and daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, received the Otis Social Justice Award from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.
Record Black First-Year Enrollments at the University of Kentucky
There are 555 African American first-year students on campus this fall. Blacks make up 11.8 percent of the entering class. This percentage is particularly impressive given the fact that Blacks are just 8 percent of the state's population.
