The JBHE Weekly Bulletin delivers the latest news on African Americans in higher education each week. S

JBHE Weekly Bulletin
June 3, 2021

Here are links to some of the top stories published at JBHE.com this past week. Click on a headline to read the full article.

	Andrew Agwunobi Appointed to Lead the University of Connecticut Dr. Agwunobi is a pediatrician by training and has been serving as CEO of University of Connecticut Health since 2015. He will continue in that role while serving as interim president of the university. The board of trustees stated that it is in no rush to start the search process.

	Highly Educated and Economically Sucessful Black Men Do Not Escape Racial Discrimination The study, by scholars at UCLA and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, found that Black men who reach a high socioeconomic status still face higher levels of discrimination compared to their White counterparts. This discrimination can also impact Black men’s physical and mental health, according to the study.

	University of Virginia’s School of Architecture Names Malo A. Hutson as Its Next Dean Dr. Hutson is currently a tenured professor and director of the Urban Planning Ph.D. Program in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City. He is also the director of the school’s Urban Community and Health Equity Lab.

	A Generational Gap in Religious Participation Among African Americans A new report from the Barna Group, a California-based research organization, finds that African Americans as a whole remain more religious than other racial/ethnic groups in the United States, but younger Blacks are turning away from organized religion.



	Brenda Thames Will Be the Next President of El Camino Community College in California Dr. Thames has spent more than two decades working for community colleges throughout the state, in instruction, student services. and administration. Most recently she has been serving as president of the Coalinga campus of West Hills College.

	New Study Finds Huge Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality Rates Men are more likely to be infected by COVID-19 and have higher death rates. But that data obscures the fact that Black women are up to four times more likely to die of COVID-19 than White men and three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than Asian men.

	Lisa Anderson-Levy Appointed Provost at Highly Rated Macalester College in Minnesota Dr. Anderson-Levy joins Macalester from Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she spent the past 13 years as a professor of anthropology. At Beloit, Professor Anderson-Levy served as associate dean of academic affairs and as chair of the department of anthropology.

	University of Colorado Establishes the Center for African and African American Studies The center will support teaching, research, and creative work on the history, culture, and struggles of people of African descent and provide a platform to build on the work of the more than 25 CU Boulder faculty members already making contributions to African and African American studies. Professor Reiland Rabaka will direct the new center.



	James L. Moore III Honored by the American Council on Education James L. Moore III, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at Ohio State University, has been awarded the 2021 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award. The award honors individuals who have demonstrated leadership and commitment on a national level to the advancement of racial and ethnic minorities in higher education.

	A Quartet of Black Scholars Taking on New Faculty Roles Taking on new faculty assignments are Antron Mahoney at Ohio Wesleyan University, Darryl Singleton at Washington State University, Sharrelle Barber at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and Bimpe Z. Adenusi at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

	Tennessee State University May Be the First HBCU to Have an Ice Hockey Team A feasibility study is underway that will answer questions about how viable is hockey at Tennessee State, and what needs to happen to put teams on the ice. The proposed program would be the first at a historically Black university and also the first college ice hockey program in the state of Tennessee.

	Six African Americans Who Have Been Appointed to Administrative Posts in Higher Education Taking on new positions are Reggie Hill at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Xeturah Woodley at Guildford Technical Community College in North Carolina, James K. Winfield at Southern New Hampshire University, Nina E. King at Duke University, Adele Brumfield at the University of Michigan, and Nicol Lewis at Columbus State University in Georgia.



	HBCUs Receive a Major Commitment From Networking Giant Cisco Starting with a $50 million anchor investment from Cisco, the Student Freedom Initiative is hoping to reach its goal of $450 million. When funded, this endowment will support 4,500 HBCU students in perpetuity. In addition, Cisco is donating $100 million in hardware and software to improve technology infrastructure at HBCUs.

	Kaja Dunn Honored for Her Work Addressing Issues of Race in Theatre Education Kaja Dunn, an assistant professor of theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte received the Kennedy Center Medallion from the National Committee of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. The medallion is the organization’s highest honor.

FEATURED Job Opportunities View more faculty, administrative & fellowship opportunities on the JBHE Employment Zone

MIT — Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion	University of Central Florida — Dean of Libraries	UC San Diego — Director, Cross Cultural Center	Carnegie Mellon University — Assistant Director of Facilities	University of North Texas — Lecturer in English
Employers: Click here to include your job opening in a future issue of the Weekly Bulletin

	Edward Waters College to Launch a New Institute on Law, Race, Social Justice and Economic Policy Edward Waters College, the historically Black educational institution in Jacksonville, Florida, has announced that it will establish the A. Philip Randolph Institute for Law, Race, Social Justice and Economic Policy. The new institute is made possible by a grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund.

	Three Black Professors Appointed to Endowed Chairs at Vanderbilt University in Nashville C. André Christie-Mizell was appointed to the Centennial Chair in Sociology. Michael Eric Dyson was named to the NEH Centennial Professorship and Major Jackson was appointed to the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities.



	In Memoriam: John Benjamin Dubriel , 1938-2021 Professor Dubriel began teaching at historically Black Fort Valley State University in 1970. After achieving status as a senior professor of mathematics, Dr. Dubriel was appointed director and vice president in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning Technologies, and Technological Services.

	Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers

	Recent Books That May Be of Interest to African American Scholars

	Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans