Photo: WSSU
The UNC System Board of Governors voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve the nomination of veteran higher education administrator Bonita Brown to serve as the next chancellor at Winston-Salem State University. Brown replaces interim chancellor Anthony Graham, who served in that role since last July after the retirement of Chancellor Elwood Robinson.
Chancellor-elect Bonita Brown addresses the media at a Wednesday press event. (Photo: WSSU)
Brown comes to the position after having served as both Interim President and Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Northern Kentucky University — a public university with approximately 15,000 students. Prior to her nearly five-year stint at Northern Kentucky, Brown spent 19 months at the Washington, DC-based nonprofit, Achieving the Dream and two years as the Director of Higher Education Practice at another Washington-based nonprofit, the Education Trust.
Brown is a native of the Winston-Salem area who, according to UNC System President Peter Hans — who presented the nomination on behalf of a search committee — spent much of her childhood on the WSSU campus as her parents met, worked and studied there. She received her undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University in 1994 and a law degree from WFU in 1997. From 2010 to 2015, she served as Vice Chancellor and Chief of Staff at UNC Greensboro. Brown’s lapsed voter registration information from the years she spent at UNCG — 2010 to 2015 — indicates that she was a registered Democrat at the time.
In introducing Brown’s nomination, Hans lauded Brown for having had great success in lifting student retention and achievement at Northern Kentucky during a period of tight budgets.
Winston-Salem State, of course, is one of North Carolina’s historically Black public universities. It boasts of being one of the nation’s “top universities for social mobility” and of having the highest graduation rate amongst the state’s HBCU’s. At last count, student enrollment stood at just under 4,800.
Brown will assume her role as WSSU’s 14th Chancellor on July 1, 2024.
The post UNC Board of Governors elects Bonita Brown new chancellor at Winston-Salem State appeared first on NC Newsline.