Monthly Archives: June 2021

Morehouse College Acquires Extensive Archives of Joseph and Evelyn Lowery

The Joseph Echols Lowery and Evelyn Gibson Lowery Collection includes over 400 linear feet of invaluable materials chronicling the Lowerys' work with civil and human rights leaders. The collection will be archived and curated at the Atlanta University Center's Robert W. Woodruff Library.

Three African Americans Who Have Been Appointed to New Posts as Diversity Officers

The trio of African American men in new diversity pots includes Daryl A. Carter at East Tennessee State University, Micahe; Bowie at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, and Michael Young at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Recent Books 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. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers

Each week, JBHE will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week’s selections.

Talladega College President Billy Hawkins to Retire Next Summer

When Dr. Hawkins took the helm at Talladega in 2008, the institution was struggling to survive and had under 300 students. The latest enrollments numbers available from the U.S. Department of Education show more than 1,200 students.

Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

Vanderbilt University Acquires Large Collection of Dizzy Gillespie Memorabilia

Vanderbilt’s partnership with the National Museum of African American Music has taken a giant step forward with the university’s inaugural acquisition — a rich collection of portraits, personal scrapbooks, signed albums, and more from the life and career of Dizzy Gillespie, a seminal figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

Four Black Men Who Are Taking on New Faculty Assignments

The four Black men in new faculty roles are Calvin Nobles at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Jeffrey Wray at Michigan State University, Dexter Gordon at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and Chris Walker at the University of Madison-Wisconsin.

Temple University in Philadelphia Names Jason Wingard as Its Next President

In 2015, Dr. Wingard was appointed dean of the School of Continuing Education at Columbia University in New York City. He also held the rank of professor at the school. Previously, Dr. Wingard was the chief learning officer at Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment firm.

Higher Education Leads to Better Health, But Not So Much for Black Men

Studies show life expectancy is higher for educated Black men — those with a college degree or higher — compared with those who have not finished high school. But the increase is not as big as it is for Whites. The findings suggest that the power of discrimination to harm Black men’s lives may be more persistent than previously understood.

Leroy Hamilton Jr. Named Provost at Kentucky State University

In addition to his role as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kentucky State, Dr. Hamilton will also serve as a professor in the School of Education, Human Development, and the Consumer Sciences. He has been serving as special assistant to the president at Norfolk State University in Virginia.

Racial Differences in Survey on Support of School Choice and Post-Pandemic Education

A new survey conducted by EdChoice finds continuing widespread support among African American families for school choice programs. And when a full explanation of school choice proposals is offered, support for such programs soars among parents of African American children.

Selwyn M. Vickers Is the New President of the American Surgical Association

In 1994, Dr. Vickers joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as an assistant professor in the department of surgery. After serving as an endowed professor at the University of Minnesota from 2006 to 2013, he returned to Alabama to take the position of dean of the medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

African Americans Not Making Progress Into the Top Ranks of Academic Surgery Positions

Over the six-year study period, the share of surgery department chairs and full professorships held by White doctors decreased by 4 to 5 percentage points, but it was Asian faculty who filled the void, rising by 4 percentage points over the same timeframe. Male Black chairs actually lost ground during the study period.

Linda Thompson Will Be the Twenty-First President of Westfield State University in Massachusetts

Dr. Thompson has served as dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 2017 and previously held a similar position at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Earlier, she served as provost and vice-chancellor at historically Black North Carolina A&T State University and dean of nursing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

Tallahassee Community College Appoints Three African Americans to Dean Positions

Tallahassee Community College recently announced the promotion of three African Americans to dean positions: Donmetrie Clark in communications and humanities, Kalynda Holton in science and mathematics, and Bryan Hooper in behavioral social sciences and education. All three, are alumni of Florida A&M University.

Virginia Union University Creates the Hezekiah Walker Center for Gospel Music

Hezekiah Walker is a famed gospel music artist and pastor of the Love Fellowship Tabernacle. He is currently a second-year student of the Virginia Union University’s Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology. The new center will help budding gospel artists learn the cultural and business aspects of gospel music and the industry.

Colleges and Universities Announce Appointments of Five African American Administrators

Taking on new administrative roles are Dozie Ibeh at Princeton University in New Jersey, David Christopher Howard at Jackson State University in Mississippi, Jesse F. Kane at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, Yolanda Smith at Tufts University in Massachusetts, and Corry Smith at Indiana University in Bloomington.

University of Mississippi Joins With Rust College in a Dual-Degree Program in Engineering

Under the agreement, students will spend their first three years at Rust College and then spend two years at the University of Mississippi School of Engineering. Successful students will be awarded a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Rust College and a master's degree in engineering from the University of Mississippi.

Jessica Marie Johnson Honored for Her Book on Black Women in the Colonial Atlantic World

Jessica Marie Johnson, an assistant professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has won the Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History. The honor is bestowed by The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association.

Claflin University Is Offering an Online Master’s Degree in Biotechnology to African Students

In 2017, Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina entered into a partnership for faculty and student exchanges with Africa Univerity, a United Methodist-related institution in Zimbabwe. Now Claflin is offering students at Africa University the opportunity to pursue an online master's degree in biotechnology program through Claflin University.

Four African Americans Who Have Been Named to New Diversity Positions in Higher Education

Taking on new duties in diversity equity, and inclusion are Elliott Dawes at Baruch College in New York, Leah Cox at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stephen Hairston at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Meshea L. Poore of West Virginia University, who was elected president of the Big 12 Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.

Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers

Each week, JBHE will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week’s selections.

Recent Books 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. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Washington and Lee University Trustees Vote Not to Change the Name of the Educational Institution

In July 2020, the faculty at Washington and Lee University supported changing the name of the university by a vote of 188 to 51. Now the university's board of trustees has voted 22 to 6 to retain the name.

Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

The First Black Woman to Earn a Ph.D. in Judicial Studies in the United States

Dr. Tobi-Aiyemo currently resides in New York City. She retired from the Lagos State Judiciary bench in Nigeria in 2019. She began the Ph.D. program six years ago and completed her studies with a dissertation entitled “The Role of the Nigerian Judiciary in a Democracy: A Judge’s Dilemma.”

Lesia L. Crumpton-Young Selected as the Next President of Texas Southern University

Since 2019, Dr. Crumpton-Youung has served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She also was a tenured full professor inf the department of industrial and systems engineering in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. School of Engineering. 

Report Concludes That the Virginia Military Institute Is Run by White Men, for White Men

An independent investigation commissioned by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia found that VMI’s overall unwillingness to change — or even question its practices and traditions in a meaningful way — has sustained systems that disadvantage minority and female cadets and faculty.

Three Universities Appoint Black Scholars to Provost Positions

Francine Conway will be chancellor-provost of the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey. John D. Jones is the new provost and vice president of academic affairs at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Melissa L. Gilliam has been appointed executive vice president and provost at Ohio State University.

The New Racial Digital Divide for College Students Is Related to Quality Internet Service

The racial digital divide appears in the quality of internet service. Some 57 percent of Black college students reported that they can access some course content, but it can be slow, unreliable, or difficult to do so. For White college students, only 24 percent said the same.

A Trio of African Americans Who Have Been Appointed to University Dean Positions

Gene Andrew Jarrett was appointed dean of the faculty at Princeton University in New Jersey. Debra J. Barksdale will be the next dean of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Keith A. Alford will become dean of the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work.

Report Presents a Plan to Get More Black Adults Back to College to Earn Their Credentials

Community colleges can play an important role in helping tBlack adults get back to work through certificate and degree programs that lead to better jobs. But, the report's authors state that colleges need to pay attention to the specific needs of adult students of color as they design programs to boost workers’ skills for today’s labor market.

Christine Holt Selected to Be the Next Chancellor of the University of Arkansas, Hope-Texarkana

Dr. Holt currently serves as chief of staff for the University of Missouri System. She previously served as associate provost at the University of Missouri at Columbia and dean of academic administration at Northern Virginia Community College.

Four Black Scholars Taking on New Assignments at Major Universities

The four scholars taking on new duties are Yohannes Haile-Selassie at Arizona State University, Cindy Crusto at the Yale School of Medicine, Patrick McPhail Martin at North Carolina A&T State University, and Ceasar McDowell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Voorhees College Announces That It Will Transition to University Status in 2022

Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, who studied at what was then the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, founded Denmark Industrial School in 1897 in South Carolina. New Jersey philanthropist Ralph Voorhees and his wife donated $5,000 to buy the land and build the first building. Next April, Voorhees Colege will become Voorhees University.

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