Rhode Island has a new commissioner of postsecondary education, Shannon Gilkey, who grew up in southwest Kentucky’s coal country and went on to earn a master’s degree from Oxford University.
The Council on Postsecondary Education voted unanimously last night to appoint Gilkey, who previously was vice-chancellor of academics and workforce development for the Kentucky community college system.
Gilkey will replace acting Commissioner Ronald Carvalho. Brenda-Dann Messier retired as commissioner in 2019.
Gilkey described himself as an educator from Kentucky, a state, he said, that has a few similarities with Rhode Island. Both states suffered after their main industries began to fall apart the coal industry in Kentucky and the textile and jewelry industry in Rhode Island.