Nov. 17

Anna Isaacson (NFL) Roger Goodell (NFL) Melanie Campbell (BWR) and Troy Vincent (NFL)
PHOTO: Black Women's Roundtable

Nov. 17, 2014

Black Enterprise Assigns New Roles to Senior Executives Dingle and Edmond

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Target Market News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) Black Enterprise President and CEO Earl "Butch" Graves Jr. has named Derek T. Dingle (left) and Alfred Edmond Jr. as Chief Content Officers, a new focus for the multi-platform media company launched 44 years ago by Founder Earl Graves Sr. as a single-magazine publishing company.

Dingle, Editor-in-Chief of Black Enterprise magazine, has been charged with leading content strategy for print and event properties of the company. He joins Edmond, named a chief content officer earlier this year and also a former editor-in-chief of Black Enterprise, who is now tasked with leading content strategy for Black Enterprise's digital and broadcast television properties, as well as the company's marketing efforts.

Both Edmond (left) and Dingle will retain their status as senior vice presidents and members of the Black Enterprise senior management team. Both Dingle and Edmond will report to CEO Butch Graves.

In addition to continuing to run Black Enterprise magazine, Dingle will lead content creation for an expanding roster of national and custom events, including the Women of Power Summit, the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit, the Black Enterprise Golf & Tennis Challenge, the 20/20 Vision Forum series on supplier diversity, and the newly added American Black Film Festival and Baltimore African American Festival.

Edmond is responsible for content strategy for digital properties, including BlackEnterprise.com and Black Enterprise social media platforms, and for broadcast properties such as the Women of Power and Our World with Black Enterprise nationally syndicated television shows, as well as content marketing across platforms.

"As our live-events business continues to expand to become a true revenue driver for our company, and for the media business in general," said CEO Butch Graves, "it just makes sense to have proven leadership to ensure that we continue to create and produce best-of-class events to extend the reach and impact of the Black Enterprise Wealth for Life mission. Derek, who has provided leadership on content creation for our nationally recognized events, and Alfred, who's led the company's transformation from a print-centric to a digitally focused business, are ideally suited to partner as our chief leaders across all of our content platforms. Together, they bring more than 50 years combined as ambassadors of the Black Enterprise mission of economic empowerment and solution-oriented media for African Americans."

Nov. 17, 2014

Loretta Lynch Deserves Confirmation
BY Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - African-American women were excited about President Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace Eric holder as Attorney General of the United States.  Since she has sailed through two Senate confirmations, her current confirmation ought to move quickly and without controversy.  But Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Tenn.) and his crowd seem to want to drag the process along, insisting on their “right” to question Loretta Lynch, and to make a spectacle of this confirmation.  There are dozens of vacancies in the ambassadorial ranks, among others because Republicans have blocked Senate consideration of these appointments.  This Senate keeps saying they want to work with the administration.  One way to show it is to move some of the appointments out of gridlock.

Loretta Lynch would be the first African American woman to hold the position of Attorney General.  This history-making nomination should not be tarnished by partisan nonsense.  If Republicans are really trying to reach out to the African-American community, conducting a non-hostile hearing in this last session of Congress signals their willingness to “do the right thing” by African Americans.  President Obama is entitled to his choice for Attorney General.  She has been fully vetted by the White House and has an exemplary record trying cases that range from police brutality to corporate fraud.   This is a piece of cake for the woman nominated attorney general. Why would the Senate not choose this woman?  Simply to flex their partisan muscles and flaunt their power?

I might remind the Senate of the mobilization that black women organized when the Honorable Alexis Herman had a rocky road in her confirmation for Secretary of Labor in President Clinton’s second term.  Prominent African American women like Dr. Dorothy Height and Dr. C Delores Tucker were present, as were others.  The message – don’t mess wit Alexis.  The foundation of another mobilization is there, and opposition to the highly qualified Loretta Lynch sends a signal to African American women, and to others, that this is a hostile Senate.  This is not new information, but is the kind of information, given adequate publicity, repels many from the Republican Party.

Maybe Republicans don’t care.  Maybe, after their November rout, they feel no need to play nice with the President or with the people.  Memo to Republicans – two years from now you will have to defend your record.  What will your vote on the Loretta Lynch confirmation say about you and your party?  Republicans were the winners in the 2014 elections, but in some case they didn’t win by much (neither did Democrats).  The electorate is divided, and angry enough to simply stay home.  Both parties need to activate their base so that more people are excited about participating in elections.  Low voter turnout signals “none of the above”.

There is no African American woman in the Senate, and precious few in the House of Representatives.  Undoubtedly these women will speak up for Loretta Lynch, perhaps walking from the House offices to the Senate as they did in support of Anita Hill.  The confirmation of Loretta Lynch is likely to be a watershed moment for the Senate.  Will they act out of integrity or ignorance? Loretta Lynch deserves to be confirmed sooner rather than later, and the senators who talked bipartisan cooperation on the campaign trail need to proactive what they preach.

Julianne Malveaux is an Author and economist based in Washington, D.C.

Nov. 16, 2014

New Boss at Virginia State as HBCU Faces Budget Troubles
Hampton U Provost to Take Reins

By Jeremy Lazarus 

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Dr. Pamela V. Hammond is on track to become the first woman to lead Virginia State University in the school’s 132-year history, the Richmond Free Press has learned. School sources said Hammond, the current provost or chief academic officer at Hampton University, has emerged as the board of visitors’ choice to become interim president to replace Dr. Keith T. Miller, who submitted his resignation Oct. 31.

The sources said Dr. Hammond was scheduled to meet with the board Nov. 13 — the date the board set for choosing an interim leader for the university in Ettrick. The board was expected to vote approval and introduce her as the choice for interim chief executive during the session, the sources said. The sources said Dr. Hammond is expected to serve while the board conducts a national search for the school’s 14th president. She would be regarded as a potential candidate, sources said, depending on her work as interim. Her start date could not be learned, but it could be soon after Jan. 1. 

Dr. Miller is to officially leave the post Dec. 31. A former nurse educator, Dr. Hammond will take over a public university grappling with major budget troubles as a result of an enrollment drop of more than 1,000 students. The problems led to cuts in student services and could force faculty and staff layoffs.She will arrive as VSU experiments with a new schedule that has lengthened regular classes times and purposefully slashed two weeks off the fall and spring semesters. The change provides a longer winter break during which the school, according to spokesman Tom Reed, will offer low-cost courses to enable “students to get ahead.”

As best as could be determined, none of the vice presidents serving under Dr. Miller was considered for the interim post, an indication of the board’s lack of confidence in the ability of members of Dr. Miller’s administrative team to turn the school around. According to the sources, board member Terone B. Green put Dr. Hammond’s name forward. Green is known to have worked with Hammond in his capacity as director of state development for the Sullivan Alliance, a group that seeks to steer undergraduates at historically Black colleges and universities into medical and health careers.

Hammond fits the criteria the board set — significant connections with an HBCU, along with broad and deep experience in management and administration. Hammond has spent much of her career at Hampton University, a private institution. She rose from teaching nursing students to becoming dean of the School of Nursing to provost, the post she has held since 2009. As provost, she has been responsible for academic policies and educational programs for Hampton’s 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 370 faculty members. 

In that capacity, she has overseen all of Hampton’s academic units, ranging from its seven schools to such elements as the College of Virginia Beach, the Davy Honors College, the College of Education and Continuing Studies, a leadership institute, the campus library and archives, a technology mall and the Hampton Center for Teaching Excellence. Hampton President William R. Harvey credits Dr. Hammond with increasing faculty applications for research grants, creating a mentorship program for new faculty and guiding development of the university’s computer-based Hampton U Online. As provost, she also has implemented 11 new graduate and undergraduate programs and an associate degree in aviation.

Hammond also chairs the National Institute of Aerospace, a nonprofit research institute based near NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton that seeks to encourage university students to become scientists and engineers. She also serves on a variety of other boards. During her previous tenure as dean of the Hampton School of Nursing, Dr. Hammond helped raise more than $12 million to support and create the first doctoral program in nursing at an HBCU, according to her biography posted on the institution’s website. 

The biography notes she also boosted enrollment in the school, began new programs for registered nurses and nurse practitioners and began initiatives to boost student retention. Dr. Hammond also served as the administrator for the Hampton University Nursing Center, where she directed health care services for indigent and homeless clients provided in a clinic and from a mobile van. Earlier, she chaired a department and served as an assistant dean and as a research associate in the School of Nursing.

Dr. Hammond formerly has been an adjunct faculty member at Norfolk State University and Christopher Newport University in Virginia and Coppin State University in Maryland and served as consultant for nursing programs at 10 HBCUs in Virginia and other states. She is a frequent speaker at academic programs and has published research on such topics as health disparities, doctoral education, recruitment and retention of minority students and child abuse and neglect. In 1996, she took a leave of absence from Hampton to serve as the executive director of the National League for Nursing’s Center for Nursing Education and Practice in New York City. 

She was directly responsible for serving approximately 2,000 schools of nursing, developed and distributed more than 70 standardized examinations and served as a curriculum consultant to educators in the United States, Spain, China, Japan, Africa and Australia.Dr. Hammond earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Tuskegee University. She later earned her master’s in maternal-child health and nursing education from the University of Maryland. She holds a doctorate in urban services and educational leadership from Old Dominion University. She is married to Gary John Hammond. They have two grown children who live in Baltimore, Dr. Jason W. Hammond, an orthopedic surgeon, and Dr. Alexis S. Hammond, a psychiatrist.