California State-Stanislaus President To Head Dillard University

California State-Stanislaus President
To Head Dillard University

NEW ORLEANS
Dr. Marvalene Hughes, the first woman or African American to be named president of California State University’s Stanislaus campus, was chosen in early March as Dillard University’s first female president.

Hughes will officially begin July 1 as the ninth president of Dillard, a private, predominantly Black school in New Orleans associated with the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ.

Dr. Bettye Parker Smith has been interim president since Dr. Michael Lomax left in June to become head of the United Negro College Fund.

“Dr. Hughes is highly qualified and has a wealth of experience in higher education. The board felt that she was the best candidate to move Dillard to the next level of academic excellence,” says Charles A. Ferguson, chairman of the Dillard University Board of Trustees.

Hughes has been president at Cal State-Stanislaus since 1994. It has nearly 8,000 students on two campuses — about four times as many as attend Dillard.

“CSU-Stanislaus is in excellent condition, and it has been my pleasure to serve. I now take on a very special challenge — one of personal passion and extreme importance — the presidency of Dillard University, one of America’s outstanding private liberal arts universities,” says Hughes. “I was solely attracted to this position because I owe much of my early training and inspiration to the instruction and close mentoring I received at an historically Black university. I am extremely proud of my heritage and the legacy of excellence with which I was imbued during those years.”

Hughes has served as vice president for student affairs/vice provost and professor of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, and system-wide administrator for all four University of Minnesota campuses. She was vice president and professor at the University of Toledo, associate vice president for student affairs at Arizona State and a senior-level administrator at San Diego State University. Hughes  received a Ph.D. in counseling and administration from Florida State University, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tuskegee University.

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