Diverse Issues in Higher Education: New Orleans' Dillard University Gets New President

November 2, 2011


NEW ORLEANS — Dillard University on Tuesday named a new president, Walter Kimbrough, to take over the helm of the historically black college in New Orleans.


Kimbrough, as president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., is scheduled to start his new job on July 1, 2012.


Dillard's board of trustees picked Kimbrough to replace Marvalene Hughes, who announced in February that she would be leaving the post.


Kimbrough has served as president of Philander Smith College for seven years. Before that, he served as vice president for student affairs at Albany State University in Albany, Ga., for four years.


According to Dr. Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund, Kimbrough raised freshmen retention rates from 51 percent to 77 percent in his first five years at Philander Smith. “He has given special attention to the challenges that face Black male students, raising the Black male graduation rate by over 70 percent,” said Lomax.


Joyce Roche, who heads Dillard's board of trustees, said Kimbrough, 44, is one of the nation's youngest college presidents and is known for using social media to stay connected with students.


“We are thrilled to bring such an energetic, visionary leader to Dillard,” Roche said in a statement. “Dr. Kimbrough is uniquely well-suited to help the university build on its strengths and chart a strategic course for the future.”


Kimbrough will be Dillard's seventh president. Hughes became Dillard's president in July 2005, a month before Hurricane Katrina struck and flooded the college along with roughly 80 percent of New Orleans.


Kimbrough has an undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia, a master's degree from Miami University and a doctorate from Georgia State University.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: New Orleans' Dillard University Gets New President

Academia.edu Center for Teaching Excellence Director at Endicott College, Dr. Dakin Burdick

http://www.endicott.edu/php/faculty/uploads/282/cv2010_04-01.pdf

Dr. Burdick is the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Endicott College and has worked in faculty development since 2000. He has consulted with hundreds of instructors in higher education on the topics of instructional design, civility, critical thinking, test design, and interpretation of student evaluations, among other topics. He is the official historian of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, and has given several presentations on the history of faculty development. He has also conducted a number of oral history interviews with leading faculty developers. Although he currently works primarily in faculty development, Dr. Burdick has a Ph.D. in U.S. History and American Studies, and has taught U.S. history at four different universities. He also practiced martial arts for twenty five years, and taught several courses on the subject in higher education, including taekwondo, hapkido, judo, jujutsu, self-defense, and two lecture courses on the cultural aspects of the arts. He was also an Associate Editor of the quarterly Journal of Asian Martial Arts for ten years, and contributed numerous articles on the martial arts to the Encyclopaedia Britannica database.



Dakin Burdick's area of expertise includes: Instructional design, faculty development, online education, blended learning, Japanese-American history, martial arts (karate, judo, etc.).

Academia.edu Center for Teaching Excellence Director at Endicott College, Dr. Dakin Burdick

Derek Bruff Author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems

Welcome to my home page. I’m Derek Bruff, author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009). I’m also acting director at the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and a senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt University Department of Mathematics. The views and opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of Vanderbilt University.

Derek Bruff Author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems

University Business: A Better Community Starts With Better Education (Opinion)

College isn’t worth it. That was the message from a Pew Research Center study this year that reported 57 percent of Americans think the higher education system doesn’t give students a good value for the thousands of dollars in tuition and expenses they spend. Seventy-five percent said college is too expensive, and two-thirds of respondents who didn’t continue their education beyond high school cited financial reasons for leaving the classroom.


This is good and bad news for the valley. If you think of cities that were once struggling but are now thriving, such as Pittsburgh, Boston or Seattle, all of them are anchored by outstanding universities. UNLV, meanwhile, has faced budget cuts of $73 million and staffing cuts of 700, while its students have confronted tuition increases of 73 percent in the past four years. Professors have had their salaries and benefits cut. Programs have been eliminated and professors lost to competing universities. Morale is flagging.


But American higher education’s significant weaknesses give UNLV an opportunity to distinguish itself. To begin with, relative to the Cal system or private schools, UNLV is cheap.


A less obvious but more powerful opportunity for distinction: Be sure our graduates are well-educated.


Las Vegas Sun

University Business: A Better Community Starts With Better Education (Opinion)

The Times Picayune: Dillard University Names Its 7th President

 
Dillard University announced the appointment Tuesday of Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, as Dillard's seventh president. The school's trustees said he would succeed Marvalene Hughes on July 1, at the close of the current academic year.



Hughes, who oversaw Dillard's recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, resigned in February. A trustee, James Lyons, has served as interim president since July 1.


The university said Kimbrough is a trained educator, having served for four years as the vice president for student affairs at Albany State University in Albany, Ga. before taking the leadership job at Philander Smith, which he has held for the past seven years.


He also served as director of student activities and leadership at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and held administrative posts at Georgia State University and Emory University.


The Times-Picayune

The Times Picayune: Dillard University Names Its 7th President