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The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) has appointed Delaware State University (DSU) President Harry Lee Williams to its Board of Directors, announced Jim Clifton, TMCF Board Chairman and President of Gallup. Dr. Williams is the tenth president of DSU, one of America’s oldest Land-Grant Institutions and the state of Delaware’s only Historically Black College or University (HBCU). He was appointed president in 2010, after serving a year and a half as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports students at historically black institutions — predominantly those in the public sector — poses a question on the Washington Post’s Grade Point blog for the nation’s first black president.

Vicksburg has been selected as one of only two sites in the country to host the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s $5.7 million initiative, the Vivian Burey Marshall STEM Pilot Initiative. Named in honor of Justice Thurgood Marshall’s first wife, the VBM will engage students in under-represented and disadvantaged populations in Vicksburg and Baltimore, Md., in science, technology, engineering and math education – leading to both STEM literacy and an increase in the participation in the STEM workforce by leveraging existing relationships between local Army facilities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Recently, a great deal of debate has centered on whether the nation’s first black president has failed its historically black colleges and universities. The debate isn’t new; for years there’s been whispered angst over the president’s paternalism and seeming aloofness when it came to black institutions—and perhaps black issues in general.

TMCF President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. spoke with the Vicksburg Today radio program on News Talk 1490 about what the launch of the Vivian Burey Marshall STEM Pilot Initiative means for Vicksburg, and how the community can help.

Thurgood Marshall College Fund President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. shares his vision for working with incoming UNC system President Margaret Spellings with the North Carolina community.