Wilma Mishoe Will Lead Delaware State University in Transition Period

Last week JBHE reported that Harry Williams, president of Delaware State University in Dover, will step down in January to lead the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Now the university’s board of trustees has named Wilma Mishoe as interim president. Dr. Mishoe is currently chair of the board of trustees.

In accepting the appointment, Dr. Mishoe stated that “our priority is to keep the university moving forward with an intentional focus on student success. Under Dr. Harry Williams’ leadership, Delaware State University grew boldly and became one of the premier institutions of our kind in the nation. That momentum must continue; standing still while we search for our next great leader is not an option. We have to keep innovating and improving.”

This is the second time that Dr. Mishoe will leave a board position to take over as acting president of a historically Black university. In 2014, as a sitting member of the board of trustees of Wilberforce University in Ohio, she was asked to serve as acting president of the HBCU. This past July, Dr. Mishoe became the first woman to chair the board of trustees at Delaware State in the university’s 124-year history.

Dr. Mishoe is the former dean of the Office of Instruction at Delaware Technical & Community College. Her father, Luna Mishoe, was the president of what is now Delaware State University from 1960 to 1987.