Education: MAJ. GEN. CEDRIC T. WINS (U.S. ARMY, RET.)

Wins has had one of academia’s toughest jobs since returning to his alma mater as its interim superintendent in 2020.

The public military university has been under fire for a “racist and sexist culture,” a charge laid at its doorstep during an independent, state-ordered investigation last summer. Wins, a 1985 alumnus, also has received criticism from alumni who want the VMI experience to remain unchanged from when they went through the school’s grueling rat line.

Wins’ appointment became permanent last year, making him VMI’s first Black superintendent. Previously, Wins held several leadership and staff assignments in the military, including stints at the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command and the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

In January, Wins, who installed VMI’s first-ever chief diversity officer, replied on Facebook to a white alumnus who warned that “critical race theory” was coming to VMI that the claim was “categorically false.”

In July, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed four conservative members to VMI’s board, including one who previously resigned from the body just before it voted to remove the campus’ statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in 2020.