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Monika Williams Shealey was appointed dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Temple University in Philadelphia. She previously served as senior vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion and dean of the College of Education at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Earlier, Dr. Williams Shealey served as associate dean for teacher education at the School of Education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Dr. Williams Shealey holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Florida in Tampa. She earned her doctorate at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
Kenyatta R. Gilbert has been named dean of the School of Divinity at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Since 2006, Dr. Gilbert has been a professor of homiletics at the divinity school. He is a nationally-recognized expert on African American preaching. He is the author of four books including A Pursued Justice: Black Preaching from the Great Migration to Civil Rights (Baylor University Press, 2017).
Dr. Gilbert earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He holds a master of divinity degree and a Ph.D. in practical theology from the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.
Jonathan Bailey Holland has been named dean of the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, effective September 1. He has been serving as the Jack G. Buncher Head of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in Pittsburgh. Earlier, he served on the faculties of the Berklee College of Music, the Boston Conservatory, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Dr. Holland received a bachelor’s degree in music from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He earned a Ph.D. in music from Harvard University.
Sharonda Ragland will serve as the acting dean for the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Union University in Richmond. She is an assistant professor of mathematics and interim chair of mass communications at the university. Earlier, she was assistant dean for undergraduate studies in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Ragland holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in applied and computational mathematics from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is completing work on a doctorate in education from Regent University in Virginia Beach.
Twinette Johnson was named dean of the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia. She has been interim dean since August 2022. Prior to joining the faculty in 2017, Professor Johnson was an associate professor of law and director of the Academic Success Program at Southern Illinois University School of Law. Professor Johnson’s research interests include higher education access policy and learning theory models in legal education.
Dr. Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University. She earned a juris doctorate at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Derrick Brooms was appointed executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College in Atlanta, effective August 1. Dr. Brooms joins Morehouse from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where he is a professor of Africana studies and sociology and the associate department head of Africana studies. His research primarily centers on Black men and boys’ pathways to and through college, their engagement on campus and identity development, as well as their lived experiences and representations in the media. He is the author of several books including Being Black, Being Male on Campus: Understanding and Confronting Black Male Collegiate Experiences (SUNY Press, 2017) and Stakes is High: Trials, Lessons, and Triumphs in Young Black Men’s Educational Journeys (SUNY Press, 2021).
Dr. Brooms is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where he majored in African and African American studies. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Loyola University Chicago.
Sherrilyn Ifill is the inaugural holder of Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. Professor Ifill most recently served as the seventh president & director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. Earlier, she was a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore for 20 years.
Professor Ifill is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She earned a juris doctorate at New York University.
Aisha Ali-Gombe, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at Louisiana State University, was named the director of the university’s new Cybersecurity Clinic.
Dr. Ali-Gombe is a graduate of the University of Abuja in Nigeria, where she majored in computer science. She holds an MBA from Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria, and a master’s degree in computer science and a Ph.D. in engineering and applied science from the University of New Orleans.
“Fearless progress toward justice often meets ferocious pushback from the oldest and most sinister of forces,” President Biden told Howard University’s graduating class.
Ben Vinson III is a historian, with his focus cast outside of the United States.
Phillip D. Jones was appointed vice president for institutional effectiveness and strategic planning at Hampton University in Virginia. He has been serving as the mayor of Newport News, Virginia.
Jones is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history. He holds a master of public policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Karla C. Lewis has been named the associate director of state and community relations at the SERVE Center of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Prior to this role, she focused on evaluations of Early College high school projects, student support services, and STEM initiatives at the university.
Dr. Lewis is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she majored in sociology. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in educational policy studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Andrea Simpson will serve as chief information security officer at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She was the chief information security officer at the Federal Communications Commission.
Simpson holds a master’s degree in information systems and telecommunications from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Camacia Smith-Ross has been appointed chief of staff at Southern University New Orleans. She is the former dean of the School of Education at Louisiana College in Pineville. Earlier in her career, Dr. Smith-Ross was an assistant professor of education at Southern University.
Dr. Smith-Ross is a graduate of Southern University in Baton Rouge, where she majored in elementary education. She holds a master’s degree in urban education and leadership from the University of New Orleans and an educational doctorate in organizational leadership from Nova Southeastern University.
Zenobia Lane was named vice president for human resources at Santa Clara University in California. She has been serving in the role on an interim basis. Before joining the staff at Santa Clara University, Lane held human resources leadership roles in Pennsylvania at Saint Joseph’s University and at Swarthmore College.
Lane earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from West Chester University in Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in human resources management from Walden University.
The men’s swimming and diving team at Howard University in Washington, D.C., recently won the Northeast Conference championship meet held in Geneva, Ohio. Howard is the only HBCU that continues to operate a varsity swim team program at the NCAA Division I level.
“It’s the first conference title for our men’s program in 34 years, and it feels amazing,” said Nicholas Askew, coach of Howard’s swimming and diving team. “It just feels phenomenal to know that there’s this group of young men and young women who believed that it was possible, even when we were first getting started and all kinds of things were not going our way.”
According to a joint study by the USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis with the YMCA, a staggering 64 percent of Black children under 18 lack swimming abilities and they drown at three times the rate of White children. According to USA Swimming 1.5 percent of its approximately 295,000 competitive swimmers are Black. Black swimmers account for just 2 percent of swimmers at the collegiate level, according to NCAA data.
Coach Askew rejects the idea that among Black people, the fear of water is somehow genetic or intrinsic. “As a people, we swam well, especially coming from the coast of Africa, where we had to swim for our livelihood,” he notes. “There’s a difference between the myth that Black people don’t swim and the challenges we have. The challenges can be overcome with proper knowledge.”
Derrick Harriell, an associate professor of African American studies and English at the University of Mississippi, is the new director of the university’s African American studies program. Dr. Harriell served as director of the master of fine arts in creative writing program at the university from 2014 to 2022.
A native of Milwaukee, Dr. Harriell holds a master’s of fine arts degree in creative writing from Chicago State University. He earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Crista Johnson-Agbakwu, a professor of obstetrics & gynecology and population & quantitative health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has been appointed the inaugural executive director of the medical school’s Collaborative in Health Equity. She was the founding director of the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic and director of the Office of Refugee Health in the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center at Arizona State University.
Dr. Johnson-Agbakwu is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she majored in biology. She earned her medical degree at Cornell University.
Duane Watson, the Frank W. Mayborn Professor and professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, has been named associate provost for faculty development for the university. He has been serving as associate dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion for Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development.
Professor Watson, who joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2016 after teaching at the University of Illinois, is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey, where he majored in psychology. He earned a Ph.D. in brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Phylicia Rashad, dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University in Washington, D.C., has been named the inaugural holder of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities at the university. The chair was funded by a $3 million endowment that was part of a $40 million gift to the university in 2020 from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
An accomplished actor and stage director, Rashad is perhaps best known for her role as Claire Huxtable on the long-running television hit “The Cosby Show.” Dean Rashad is a graduate of Howard University and holds honorary doctorates from more than a dozen colleges and universities.
Misty De Berry was hired as an assistant professor of performance studies in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University beginning in the 2023-24 academic year. Dr. De Berry is currently a senior lecturer in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College.
Dr. De Berry is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Columbia College in Chicago and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C., is teaming up with Amazon to create pipelines of diverse science talent and differentiated research. Under the agreement, Amazon will fund faculty research projects in the College of Engineering and Architecture at the university with an initial focus on machine learning and natural language processing.
As a component of these awards, faculty are assigned an Amazon Research Liaison who will stay in regular contact with the awardee for the duration of the project. Amazon Research Liaisons are technical subject matter experts who stay informed about the progress of the project and serve as a bridge to Amazon’s scientific community.
The collaboration builds on an existing relationship between Howard and Amazon Studios to “diversify the entertainment industry by creating a pipeline for Black and other underrepresented students” and a 10-week summer practicum program sponsored by Amazon Web Services, which enabled Howard University undergraduate students to pursue both a cloud fundamentals course and an applied internship with AWS.
“We are confident that the scholarly works produced by this important research collaboration will advance technological innovation in strategic domains shared by Howard and Amazon,” said Harry Keeling, associate professor of computer science at Howard University. “Further, we believe that this collaboration will attract additional funding as well as accelerate our graduates’ preparation for careers within Amazon.”
Patricia Hill, professor Emerita of English at the University of San Francisco, died on January 23. She was 80 years old.
A native of Washington, D.C., she was a member of the first class to desegregate McKinley High School in Washington. She then earned a bachelor’s degree at Howard University.
Professor Hill moved to the Bay Area in the late 1960s and earned a master’s degree at the University of San Francisco and a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University. Dr. Hill joined the faculty at the University of San Francisco in 1970 as an instructor in English and ethnic studies. She was later named director of the ethnic studies program. She created and taught a wide range of courses including Survey of American Literature, Harlem Renaissance, Survey of Women’s Literature, Survey of African American Literature, as well as courses in drama and women’s studies. Professor Hall was the editor of Call & Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (Houghton Mifflin, 1997).
Dr. Hill retired as a full professor in 2015 after teaching at the University of San Francisco for 45 years.
“This isn’t a bunch of Black people in a pool,” remarks Nic Askew, the coach of the all-Black swim team at Howard University. “It’s young Black men and women succeeding in a sport that, for years, has shut them out of this experience.” For Sports Illustrated, Robert Sanchez spends time with Askew, a 44-year-old Howard alum and record-setting swimmer who agreed to take over the university’s swimming program. An inspiring coach, Askew has slowly but steadily breathed life into the program, creating, reports Sanchez, “arguably the most electric collegiate swimming environment in the U.S.”
Today, Black Americans are 5.5 times more likely to drown than white ones, and historically, racism has made pools across the U.S. — and swimming as both a sport and leisurely activity — less accessible to Black communities. While other HBCUs have cut programs over the decades, Howard’s swim program still stands, and stands proudly.
Askew is a font of positivity, a never-ending seeker of the good that’s just around the corner. It’s an attitude that dates to his time two decades ago as a record-setting swimmer and all-conference tennis player at Howard. “He always wants to know what’s next,” says King, Askew’s former teammate, who once starred as a distance freestyler. “And he’s bringing you with him.” Askew often talks about overflowing cups, about using his cup to fill others’, about the big idea he has for the Bison pool, about the team’s schedule, about winning, about the idea that America’s only all-Black college swim team could become a touchstone for underserved communities across the country.
John L. Jackson Jr. has been chosen to be the next provost at the University of Pennsylvania, effective June 1. He will be the 31st individual to serve as provost at the university.
“I could not be more honored and genuinely humbled to be asked to serve in this important post,” Dr. Jackson said. “I look forward to working closely with President Magill and the entire Penn community as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of today and prepare, together, for the ones that will emerge tomorrow.”
Dr. Jackson is currently the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and the Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice and senior advisor to the provost on diversity at the university. Professor Jackson joined the faculty at the university in 2006 after erving as an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University.
An urban researcher, media ethnographer, anthropologist of religion, and theorist of race/ethnicity, Dr. Jackson’s work explores how film and other nontraditional formats can be effectively used in scholarly research projects. He is the author or co-author of several books including Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Harvard University Press, 2013), Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness (Basic Civitas, 2008), and Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Dr. Jackson is a summa cum laude graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in communication He holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City.
The United States Department of Defense recently announced that it is establishing its fifteenth university-affiliated research center at Howard University in Washington, D.C. It’s the first university-affiliated research center associated with one of America’s historically Black colleges and universities and the first sponsored by the Air Force.
“To sharpen America’s technological edge and to strengthen America’s outstanding military, the department is committed to investing even more in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III . “Today, we’re taking that commitment to a new level.” The new research center will be led by Howard University and will focus on tactical autonomy, which is an area of research which is central to U.S. security.
The Air Force defines tactical autonomy as autonomous systems acting with delegated and bounded authority of humans in support of tactical, short-term actions associated with a longer-term strategic vision. The objective of the tactical autonomy program is to develop and demonstrate autonomous technologies that will enable various mission sets, with minimal supervision from human operators in environments that are complex and unpredictable.
“Autonomous systems make our military faster, smarter and more combat-credible,” said Secretary Austin. “They equip commanders with the best possible information to support life-and-death decisions. And I have no doubt that the advancements that will come out of Howard’s new research center will do even more to protect our most precious asset – our men and women in uniform.”
Howard University will receive $18 million per year for five years to fund the center and its research. Jackson State University and Tougaloo College in Mississippi; Tuskegee University in Alabama, Hampton University and Norfolk State University in Virginia, Bowie State University in Maryland, Delaware State University, and Florida Memorial University will participate in the research.
“Today as we work to build enduring advantages for our brave men and women in uniform, we must seek the latest innovations in science and engineering,” Secretary Austin told students and faculty at Howard University. “That means building more bridges to America’s outstanding STEM community. You see, we need your ideas; we need your creativity and we need to draw on the skills of all of our people.”
Desireé C. Boykin, senior vice president and general counsel at the United Negro College Fund, recently received the 2022 Vanguard Award from the Higher Education Leadership Foundation. She was also inducted into the foundation’s Sankofa Hall of Leadership. The foundation recognizes individuals for their enduring and undeniable leadership and influence on the continued excellence of historically Black colleges and universities.
“I am so excited and humbled. Education is paramount in my family and many of us earned our education at an HBCU,” Boykin said. “Presidents of these prestigious institutions help make it possible for thousands of deserving students to earn an education and I am incredibly grateful that they chose to recognize my commitment to their success. I am also grateful to my family and my UNCF Team for their support and making this possible.”
Prior to joining UNCF in 2002, Boykin was an associate attorney at the law office of John Paul Simpkins, where she was responsible for all phases of general civil practice including personal injury, product liability, family law, and medical malpractice.
Boykin is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in communication. She holds a juris doctorate from the Howard University School of Law.
Historically Black Howard University and Georgetown University are collaborating to establish a center for medical humanities. The Georgetown-Howard Center for Medical Humanities and Health Justice will focus on reducing health disparities in Washington by leveraging methods of critical inquiry at the heart of the humanities. The center is being funded by a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field that recenters health in its broader social, cultural, and historical context. Bridging the clinic and the archive, it uses humanities and social sciences methods to explore, analyze, and critique the contexts of illness and health. Disciplines represented include history, literary studies, philosophy, bioethics, cultural studies, religion, psychology, medical anthropology, and the visual and performing arts.
“These approaches play a frontline role in contextualizing healthcare, shaping health policy and communication, resource allocation, dismantling racism and health disparities, caring for vulnerable communities, understanding the experience of illness and suffering, providing a source of comfort, interpreting and making meaning from crisis, engaging with uncertainty, and envisioning alternatives,” says Lakshmi Krishnan, an assistant professor at the School of Medicine at Georgetown University and co-leader of the new center.
“In every way, the center will embrace the public aspect of public humanities and situate itself at the intersection of medical and health humanities to affirm its commitment to public health,” says Dana A. Williams, co-leader of the project and a professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. “It will serve as a research and educational hub convening community partners, academic faculty, and undergraduate, graduate and professional students.”
Dr. Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Grambling State University in Louisiana and a master’s degree and Ph.D. both in African American literature from Howard University.
Misha G. Cornelius was appointed director of public relations in the Office of University Communications at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Cornelius has been a member of Howard University’s public relations team for over four years, serving in roles of increasing responsibility since 2018, most recently serving as the interim director of public relations.
Cornelius earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Francisco State University. She is currently a doctoral student in political science at Howard University.
Zac Selmon was appointed director of athletics at Mississippi State University. He was the deputy athletics director for external engagement and advancement at the University of Oklahoma. Earlier he was senior associate athletics director for administration and development at the University of Oklahoma.
Selmon was a four-year starter at tight end for the football team at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was a dean’s list scholar graduating in 2007 with a degree in religion and international studies. He holds a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in intercollegiate athletics administration from the University of Oklahoma.
Anne Edwards was named director of the Black Cultural Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She was director of the Center for Black Studies at Northern Illinois University. Previously, she served for six years in the Office of Career Services at Northern Illinois University.
Dr. Edwards holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hospitality management from Purdue University. She earned an MBA at Valparaiso University in Indiana and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Northern Illinois University.
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.
Historically Black Tennessee State University has received a grant of nearly $5 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sustainable hemp fiber research that will promote market development of industrial hemp supply as a climate-smart commodity through incentives to underserved Tennessee growers enrolled in the program. The funds will be used to provide support and incentives to historically underserved farmers owning up to 500 acres to grow fiber hemp. The fiber hemp will then be processed and supplied to the motor vehicle industry as raw materials for manufacturing critical motor vehicle parts such as fabrics and bioplastics The project is being led by Emmanuel Omondi, assistant professor of agronomy at Tennessee State. Dr. Omondi is a graduate of the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Wyoming.
African Americans are more likely to be living with HIV than other racial and ethnic groups. One of the significant factors related to HIV disease management is smoking status, as smoking negatively impacts HIV treatment, and people with HIV are more likely to smoke relative to the general population. The University of Houston received a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for the development of a mobile intervention for Black American smokers who are infected with HIV.
The Quantum Biology Laboratory at historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a $1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Researchers in the lab will use the funding to build upon its previous work in modeling and measuring how quantum optical effects in cytoskeletal networks enable living matter to process information in ultrafast communication channels. The lab seeks answers to questions such as: How do living systems arise from nonliving matter? How does life organize from biomolecular building blocks? What is the role that light plays in the origins of life itself? The lab is under the direction of Philip Kurian, who holds a Ph.D.from Howard University.
Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has received a $399,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a three-year applied learning research curricular project on voting rights. Bard College is collaborating on the project with three historically Black universities — North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Tuskegee University, and Prairie View A&M University – and the Andrew Goodman Foundation. The crux of the project will study how the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and outlawed age-based voter discrimination, impacted voter disenfranchisement while also focusing on the role of college communities in the fight for voting rights.
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