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2023 Virginia 500: Education
Makola M. Abdullah PRESIDENT, VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY, ETTRICK Javaune Adams-Gaston PRESIDENT, NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY, NORFOLK Jonathan R. Alger PRESIDENT, JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY, HARRISONBURG Peter Blake DIRECTOR, STATE COUNCIL OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR VIRGINIA, RICHMOND Lance R. Collins VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA TECH INNOVA[...]
Education 2023: PETER BLAKE
Blake will leave quite a legacy when he steps down from his role as director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia at the end of the year. SCHEV is establishing a search committee for his replacement and will work with the state education secretary’s office and others. During Blake’s 11 years at […]
Education 2023: MICHAEL RAO
In his 14th year at VCU, Rao has had a year of ups and downs. VCU opened its $125 million STEM building in April, and in May it announced an $18 million donation from Washington, D.C.-based real estate analytics company CoStar Group to build an academic building for arts and innovation. However, VCU Health made […]
Education 2023: JAVAUNE ADAMS-GASTON
Rising in prominence since Adams-Gaston became its leader in 2019, Norfolk State now ranks regularly in the top 20 historically Black colleges and universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. In 2021, Norfolk State received its largest single-donor gift, $40 million from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The […]
Education 2023: GREGORY WASHINGTON
A first-generation college graduate, Washington became the first Black president of Virginia’s largest and most diverse public university in 2020. Trained in mechanical engineering at North Carolina State University, Washington was elected in February to the National Academy of Engineering. He was previously dean of the University of California, Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering a[...]
Education 2023: ANNE M. KRESS
As president of Virginia’s largest community college — and one of the largest community colleges in the country — Kress oversees faculty, staff and nearly 70,000 internationally diverse students on six campuses near Washington, D.C., including NOVA’s Medical Education Campus in Springfield. In May, Gov. Glenn Youngkin visited the college’s Alexandria campus to announce a [&he[...]
Education 2023: KARL McDONNELL
McDonnell is CEO of Strategic Education, an education services holding company that owns for-profit Strayer and Capella universities, the Jack Welch Management Institute and nondegree schools DevMountain, Hackbright Academy and Sophia Learning. Strategic Education was formed in 2018 by the $2 billion merger of Strayer Education and Capella Education. McDonnell was previously president and CEO [&he[...]
Education 2023: MAKOLA M. ABDULLAH
Abdullah received the ultimate show of support from VSU in 2022, when he signed a multimillion-dollar deal to stay on as president through 2029. The public historically Black university was struggling financially when Abdullah arrived in 2016, but he has since righted the ship, leading the school to a budget surplus. VSU was ranked No. […]
Education 2023: MAJ. GEN. DONDI E. COSTIN (U.S. AIR FORCE, RET.)
A retired 32-year Air Force veteran who served as the branch’s chief of chaplains at the Pentagon, Costin became president of Liberty, one of the nation’s largest Christian universities, in August. Costin, who received master’s degrees in counseling and religion from Liberty, retired from the Air Force in 2018 to become president of Charleston Southern […]
Arts | Entertainment | Sports 2023: BRENT PRY
Pry’s first full season leading the Hokies ended with a 3-8 record in 2022. But in sports, there’s always next season, so Pry has used the downtime to bolster his staff. In March, he brought in another Brent, former Army offensive coordinator Brent Davis, as a temporary offensive consultant. (Most of Pry’s experience is as […]
September 2023 Virginia 500 Spotlight: DONNA PRICE HENRY
FIRST JOB: I worked at a Dairy Queen during the summers while I was in high school. FAVORITE APP: Apple Fitness, except when it tells me that I’m behind in meeting my goals for the day HOW I BALANCE WORK AND PERSONAL LIFE: Some days, I am better at this than others. In my role […]
Education 2023: JONATHAN R. ALGER
Alger, who joined JMU in 2012, has led the public university to new heights. In the past two years, the university received R2 research classification from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, joined the Sun Belt Conference and the FBS level in NCAA Division I football, and saw the graduation of the first cohort from […]
