Pamela Gunter-Smith has been selected to become the fourth president of York College in York, Pennsylvania. She will begin her new role on July 1. York College enrolls about 5,800 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. African Americans make up about 4 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Since 2006, Dr. Gunter-Smith has been provost and academic vice president at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Previously, she was the Porter Professor of Physiology at Spelman College in Atlanta. At Spelman, she chaired the biology department for 10 years and was the program director of the Center for Biomedical and Behavioral Research.
Dr. Gunter-Smith is a graduate of Spelman College. She earned a Ph.D. in physiology at Emory University in Atlanta and did postdoctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
article via Spelman College Graduate to Become President of York College in Pennsylvania : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
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David J. Johns has been appointed as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. As executive director Johns will be asked to identify evidence-based best practices to improve African American student achievement from cradle to career. The goal of the initiative is to work with federal, state, and local agencies as well as community groups to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African-American students.
Johns has been serving as a senior education policy advisor to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He is a former elementary school teacher in New York City.
Johns is a graduate of Columbia University where he triple majored in English, creative writing, and African-American studies. He earned a master’s degree in sociology and education policy at Teachers College of Columbia University.
article via The New Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, president of Kalamazoo College in Michigan, has been elected chair of the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). The association represents more than 1,000 member institutions nationwide.
“NAICU is an effective and respected participant in the political process, representing member institutions on policy issues with the federal government, including issues affecting student aid, taxation, government regulation, and the assault on the liberal arts,” Dr. Wilson-Oyelaran said. “As NAICU chair, I will be in a position to advocate for these and other issues that are vital to helping institutions thrive in a competitive marketplace, an uncertain economy, and a divisive political climate.”
Dr. Wilson-Oyelaran has served as president of Kalamazoo College since 2005. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Pomona College, and master’s and doctoral degrees in education from the Claremont Graduate University in California.
article via jbhe.com
David A. Paterson, the former governor of the State of New York and the only African American to serve in that post, will be joining the faculty at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem. Paterson will serve as a distinguished professor of health care and public policy.
Paterson was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 and was elevated to governor when Eliot Spitzer resigned due to a prostitution scandal. Paterson decided not to run for governor in 2010. After leaving the state house, Paterson taught at New York University and hosted a talk show on WOR-AM radio in New York.
Paterson is a graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in history. He earned at law degree at Hofstra University.
article via jbhe.com
Heidi M. Anderson was appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. The university enrolls about 2,800 students, equally divided between undergraduates and graduate students. When Dr. Anderson takes office in July, the university’s two highest officials, president and provost, both will be African-American women. Helen F. Giles-Gee became the university’s president a year ago. Only 6 percent of the undergraduate student body at the university is Black.
Currently Dr. Anderson is vice president for institutional effectiveness at the University of Kentucky. She has been a faculty member and an administrator at the University of Kentucky for the past 11 years.
A native of Gary, Indiana, Dr. Anderson holds bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees, all from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
article via Heidi Anderson Named Provost at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Donald B. Pope-Davis was named as the next provost at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. He will take office in July. DePaul University enrolls about 16,000 undergraduate students and 9,000 graduate students. About 9 percent of the undergraduate students are African Americans.
Currently, Pope-Davis is professor of psychology and vice president and associate provost at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He has served on the Notre Dame faculty for 13 years and has been associate provost since 2007.
Professor Pope-Davis is the co-author of three books: Multicultural Counseling Competencies: Assessment, Education and Training, and Supervision (Sage, 1996), The Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender: Implications for Multicultural Counseling (Sage, 2001) and Handbook of Multicultural Competencies in Counseling and Psychology (Sage, 2003).
Dr. Pope-Davis is a graduate of Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. He earned a doctorate in counseling psychology at Stanford University.
article via jbhe.com
T. Geronimo Johnson, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of California at Berkeley, has been selected as one of five finalists for the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. He also serves as director of the university’s Summer Creative Writing Program.
Johnson is being honored for his debut novel, Hold It, ‘Til It Hurts(Coffee House Press, 2012), a story of two brothers who have returned to the United States after serving in the war in Afghanistan.
Johnson is a native of New Orleans. He holds a master’s degree in language, literacy, and culture from the University of California at Berkeley and a master of fine arts degree from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.
The winner will be announced on March 19 and the award will be presented at the 33rd annual PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington on May 4.
article via jbhe.com
Langston University was founded in Langston, Oklahoma, on March 12, 1897. It is Oklahoma’s only historically Black college or university. Because African-Americans were not allowed to attend colleges and universities in the state, the Black settlers of Langston raised the money to build an instruction where their children could learn and grow.
Originally founded as the Colored Agricultural and Normal University, the school operated with the mission to instruct both male and female students in the fields of agriculture, mechanics and industrial arts. On September 3, 1898, the school officially opened in a Presbyterian church in with an enrollment of 41 students. Today, Langston University boasts an undergraduate enrollment of 2,379 students.
article by Britt Middleton via bet.com
article by Britt Middleton via bet.com
Frank X. Walker, an associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky, has been named as the poet laureate of Kentucky by Steve Beshear, the state’s governor. He is the first African-American poet to hold that position. Walker also serves as the university’s director of African-American and Africana studies program.He will take the position of poet laureate in a public ceremony that is to take place at the state capitol building in Frankfort.
Walker, who is the author of a number of books, has taught at the University of Kentucky since 2010. Before that, he was a member of the faculty at Northern Kentucky University and at Eastern Kentucky University. He has become well-known for creating the term “Affrilachia,” which is designed to unify Appalachian and African-American culture and history.
High schooler Caleb Smith (pictured) recently defied his disability by winning his first wrestling bout for his St. Paul Minnesota high school, according to CBS Minnesota. Smith lost his limbs when he contracted a rare meningitis blood disorder at the age of 3-years-old that caused his blood vessels to burn.
Due to his illness, the Harding senior’s parents were forced to make the heart-ripping decision to have their son’s arms and legs removed at their respective joints. “I was 3, so I hadn’t developed writing and walking skills completely, so it was pretty easy getting used to it, Smith said of his experience.
Fifth grade was when Smith began to dabble in the highly aggressive sport of wrestling, and his
positive attitude about himself allowed him to take part in his first match.
As far as the sport goes, even though Smith weighs a feathery 120 pounds, don’t let his size fool you; the teen has learned to use his physique to help him maintain a competitive edge against his opponents. According to his high school coaches, Smith moves better than his rivals and has led his school in escapes this year.
“He’s got the kind of strength people don’t normally see at 120,” coach Otto Kraus told CBS Minnesota. “Plus, the way he can move makes it hard to wrestle him.”
The young dynamo does have one drawback, though: he gets winded more easily than his opponents. In order to combat this Smith says he trains tirelessly so that he can overcome wrestling’s physical challenges. “For them to run 10 yards or whatever, it takes them like 20 steps,” he said. “But it takes me like 30 because my legs can only move so far,” he told CBS Minnesota.