With a decision on its accreditation just three months away, the Wilberforce University board of trustees is still searching for a president.
Sources close to the search say the board is choosing from three candidates: Joyce Blackwell, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina; Algeania Warren Freeman, former president of Martin University in Indianapolis and Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina; and W. Franklin Evans, interim president of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Joyce Blackwell has been at Bennett College since 2012. According to her vita, her accomplishments there include gaining a $450,000 grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation to develop a leadership institute, and assisting with the development of new majors in entrepreneurship, global studies and Africana women’s studies. She also established a program that increased the school’s freshman retention rate from 56 to 84 percent. Blackwell has a Ph.D. from in women’s and peace studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Algeania Warren Freeman presently heads The Freeman Group, Inc., which provides fundraising, grant writing and contract project management services. According to her vita, she was an acting CEO for Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceburg, Virginia. The school closed in June 2013 years of financial problems. Warren Freeman was president of Martin University from 2008 to 2010. According to her vita, she increased enrollment by 50 percent and took the school from a $1.8 million deficit to a $900,000 surplus. She has a Ph.D. in speech communications from The Ohio State University.
Evans came to S.C. State in 2012 and served as acting president in 2013. He also served as vice president for academic affairs at Virginia Union University in Richmond from 2008 to 2012, and as associate vice chancellor at Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He has a Ph.D. in higher education administration and supervision from Georgia State University.
Sources say Wilberforce trustees will make an offer this week. But Mark Wilson, chair for the university’s board of trustees, says school officials are being very careful about the process.
