Dr. Pamela Hammond, who will become Virginia State University’s interim president effective Jan. 1, 2015, will be the first female president in the school’s nearly 133-year history.
University officials say that, while the national search will get going early in the new year, there’s been no timetable set for when the 10-person search committee will make its decision on a new president. The committee includes six VSU board of visitors members, a faculty representative, and the VSU National Alumni Association president.
“We have assembled a diverse and exceptional committee to undertake this very important task. We are committed to engaging in a transparent process that adheres to the university’s strong commitment to shared governance,” Harry Black, the Rector of the Virginia State University board of visitors and the presidential search committee chair, said in a statement.
Last month, the university named Dr. Pamela Hammond, the current Hampton University provost, to become VSU interim president effective Jan. 1, 2015. Hammond, who will be the first woman president in the school’s nearly 133-year history, replaces Miller who announced his resignation this past October. Miller, the school’s 13th president, will return to the VSU faculty as a tenured professor.
“Virginia State University has a remarkable history and a compelling story,” Hammond told a gathering of members of the VSU community during a campus introduction event last month.
Since 2009, Hammond has served as the Hampton provost and has led an academic program that includes 5,500 students and 350 faculty members. Under Hammond’s leadership, a faculty mentorship program, an online education division, and 12 new academic programs, including four at the doctoral level, have been launched at the private Hampton, Va.-based historically Black university. In addition to her Hampton duties, she is a member of the Reaffirmation of Accreditation Committee of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Commission on Colleges.
A nurse by training, Hammond earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Tuskegee University and a master of science in maternal-child nursing from the University of Maryland-Baltimore. She attained a doctorate in urban services, with a concentration in educational leadership and health care administration from Old Dominion University.
