Rhodes College president stepping down, obtains new leadership role (Source: WMC Action News 5) By WMC Action News 5 Staff | March 4, 2021 at 11:21 AM CST - Updated March 4 at 11:21 AM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The president of Rhodes College will soon step down. According to a newsletter sent to Rhodes alumni, President Marjorie Hass will step down in mid-August.
She will become President of the Council of Independent College in Washington D.C. This council has a membership of 765 independent and universities, according to Rhodes.
Hass was the leader of Rhodes College for the last four years. The Rhodes College Board of Trustees is assembling a search committee and has contracted Storbeck Search to help identify a suitable candidate to become the 21st president of Rhodes College.
Gentles-Peart. Photo: RWU
Roger Williams University announced on Wednesday that race and gender expert Kamille Gentles-Peart, an associate professor of communication and media studies, was appointed a fellowship by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) to lead a regional effort aimed at increasing faculty diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives in higher education.
Currently, more than one-third of America’s college students are people of color and only about 5 percent of college faculty are African-American, about 3 percent are Hispanic and about 1 percent are Native American.
As NEBHE Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fellows, Gentles-Peart will co-lead the initiative with Tatiana Cruz, an assistant professor of history at Lesley University. They will provide the vision and leadership to develop a regional strategy that expands research, programming and policy work that advances faculty equity and inclusion.
Damage inside the U.S. Capitol building after it was overrun by Trump supporters Wednesday.
Paul Pribbenow, president of Augsburg University in Minneapolis, was leading a plenary panel on college presidential leadership at the Council of Independent Colleges’ virtual Presidents Institute when he first saw news of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday. Attendees also became distracted by the violence and asked Pribbenow and his colleagues versions of the same question: What should we do?
“There’s a firm sense that our colleges and university communities are asking us to say something and do something,” Pribbenow said. The calls for responses from presidents were similar to community calls for action after a police officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in May, setting off nationwide protests.