Four Black Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions

Karen E. Bravo will be the next dean of the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis. She is currently serving as vice dean. When Bravo assumes her new role on July 1, she will be the 13th dean of the law school since its affiliation with Indiana University in 1944. She will also be the first person of color and the second woman in the school’s history to lead the urban-based institution.

Bravo is a graduate of the University of the West Indies. She earned a juris doctorate at Columbia University and a master’s degree in law from New York University.

Yohuru Williams was named dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and affiliated faculty in the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Dr. Williams currently is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He will begin his new post on July 1, 2020.

Dr. Williams is the author or editor of several books including Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement (Routledge, 2015). He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Kojo Mensa-Wilmot will be the next dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. He currently serves as a professor and chair of the department of cellular biology at the University of Georgia. He will begin his new job on August 1.

Professor Mensa-Wilmot earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Ghana and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

SherRhonda Gibbs has been appointed as the next dean of the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Gibbs currently serves as the interim director for the School of Management, which is the largest area within the College of Business at the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to this role, she holds the Alvin Williams Endowed Chair of Minority Entrepreneurship.

Professor Gibbs holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Grambling State University in Louisiana. She earned an MBA at Winona State University in Minnesota and a Ph.D. in management from Jackson State University in Mississippi.

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