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Gamal Abdelaziz was accused of paying $300,000 in 2018 to have his daughter admitted to the University of Southern California as a top-ranked basketball recruit,
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.
Arthur Thomas, the former president of Central State University, the historically Black educational institution in Wilberforce, Ohio, died on February 9 in a hospital in Silver Springs, Maryland. He was 82 years old.
A native of Philadelphia, Thomas enrolled at Central State University after serving in the U.S. Army. After graduation in 1962, he secured a job as a teacher in the public school system of Dayton, Ohio. There he was a leader in the effort to end racial segregation in the school system.
Dr. Thomas went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a doctorate in education administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In 1985, Dr. Thomas was appointed president of Central State University. He was the first alumnus of the school to serve as university president. He resigned in 1995 when it was revealed that the school was $5 million in debt.
Later in his career, Dr. Thomas was the senior administrative coordinator of the Ph.D. program in bioenvironmental science in the School of Computer, Mathematical, & Natural Sciences at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He then served as a presidential fellow for the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
John H. Bracey Jr., a longtime faculty member in the W.E.B Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, died earlier this month at age 81.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Washington, D.C., Bracey attended both Howard University in Washington and Roosevelt University in Chicago, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1964. He did graduate work at Roosevelt University and Northwestern University, while active in the civil rights movement in Chicago.
Professor Bracey was a leading figure in the fields of African American studies and U.S. history. He joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and helped create one of the nation’s first doctoral programs in African American studies. He also served in several roles including as chair of the department and co-director of the graduate certificate in African Diaspora Studies.
Professor Bracey’s writing and research focused on African social and cultural history, radical ideologies and movements, and the history of African American women, while his recent interests focused on the interactions between African Americans and Native Americans, Afro-Latinx, and Jewish Americans.
He co-authored or co-edited numerous books including Strangers and Neighbors: Relations Between Blacks and Jews in the United States (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999) and the two-volume African American Mosaic: A Documentary History from the Slave Trade to the Twenty-First Century (Pearson, 2004 & 2020).
“Professor Bracey was a giant in his field. His contributions, mentorship, and advocacy for African American Studies/Black Studies were known throughout the world. He was a member of our department faculty for over 50 years,” said Yolanda Covington-Ward, chair of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies. “Indeed, he was an institution within himself. His commitment to supporting and guiding our students was invaluable; he impacted the lives of so many students and faculty. Our department has lost one of its strongest pillars and we are grieving. We are still trying to come to terms with this tremendous loss.”
Wilmore Webley will serve as the inaugural senior vice provost for equity and inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an associate professor of microbiology and has been serving as associate dean for inclusion and engagement in the university’s Graduate School. Dr. Webley joined the faculty at the university in 2003.
Dr. Webley earned a bachelor’s degree in medical technology at Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Jamaica. He holds master’s and doctorate degrees in microbiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Cornelius Gilbert was appointed chief diversity officer at the State University of New York Adirondack in Queensbury. He previously taught at Northern Illinois University and the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
A native of Chicago, Dr. Gilbert earned bachelor’s degrees in history and Afro-American studies, a master’s degree in Afro-American studies, and a doctorate in education with a focus on history, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Krista L. Walker was named assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion for the College of Nursing at Michigan State University. She was an assistant professor of family medicine and director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Medicine.
Dr. Walker is a graduate of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree in urban affairs from Queens College of the City University of New York, a master’s degree in teaching urban adolescents with disabilities from Long Island University, and a Ph.D. in educational policy and leadership studies from the University of Iowa.
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria, which causes gonorrhea. (credit: NIAID)
The most highly drug-resistant cases of gonorrhea detected in the US to date appeared in two unrelated people in Massachusetts, state health officials announced Thursday.
The cases mark the first time that US isolates of the gonorrhea-causing bacterium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, have shown complete resistance or reduced susceptibility to all drugs that are recommended for treatment.
Fortunately, both cases were successfully cured with potent injections of the antibiotic ceftriaxone, despite the bacterial isolates demonstrating reduced susceptibility to the drug. Ceftriaxone is currently the frontline recommended treatment for the sexually transmitted infection.
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