The Virginia Union University Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Claude G. Perkins President on August 20, 2009. Dr.Perkins is the 12th President to serve in the history of the University. He was appointed by the Board as Acting President on January 21, 2009. Dr. Perkins is a veteran educator with over 35 years in educational leadership roles at various levels of K-12 and higher education. Prior to joining Virginia Union University, he served as a Professor of Educational Leadership, Graduate Dean and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Albany State University for over 10 years. He also served as Chair of the State of Georgia’s Administrative Committee on graduate work and on the National Graduate Records Examination (GRE) Board of Advisors. Dr. Perkins established Albany State’s post-tenure review process and developed the Graduate School’s strategic plan. His responsibilities also included serving as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Ronald Brown International Trade Center, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Student Retention. As Albany State’s representative for international affairs, Dr. Perkins provided oversight for program development to internationalize the curriculum, promote international faculty and student exchanges, and establish international partnerships for program development initiatives. He promoted study abroad programs in South Africa, Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Europe, and Asia. Prior to his appointments at Albany State, Dr. Perkins held the position of Deputy Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent for Special Student Services in the Richmond Public School System in Richmond, Virginia. He was responsible for the overall planning and assessment of the school division’s educational programs, facilities, business services, technology, human resources, and research needs. He also provided general administrative supervision for 60 schools and special programs. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Superintendent, Dr. Perkins was Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools in the Richmond Public School System. In this capacity, he served as the chief administrator and instructional eader for all middle, high, vocational, technical, and continuing education schools in the entire division. Dr. Perkins’ xtensive experience has also included Superintendent of Schools positions in Kansas City, Missouri, and Clark County, Nevada. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, is the fifth largest school district in the United States with more than 00,000 students enrolled today. The Civil War ended in 1865 and even though the 13th Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery, many trials still lay ahead. It became more and more certain that freedom would not, of itself, be enough. It would not sufficiently address the problems of a large newly emancipated population that had been systematically kept down and denied skills, opportunities, and even literacy itself. Some slaves had been severely punished for even trying to read the Bible. Concerned individuals began to plan for an even greater and far more lengthy war – a struggle against ignorance and neglect; something to make the freedom that millions of African-Americans had attained after such suffering more secure, lasting and fulfilling. Among these individuals in the North were members of the American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS). The ABHMS proposed a “National Theological Institute” designed primarily at providing education and training for Freedmen to enter into the Baptist ministry. It would soon come to pass that this mission was expanded to offer courses and programs at college, high school and even preparatory levels, to both men and women. In 1865, following the surrender of the Confederacy, branches of the “National Theological Institute” in Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia went their separate ways and would not re-unite for another 34 years. The Washington institution received a $1,500 grant from the Freedman’s Bureau and met at various locations including: Judiciary Square; “I” Street; Louisiana Avenue and, finally, Meridian Hill. The school became known as Wayland Seminary; and it acquired a sterling reputation under the direction of its president, Dr. George Mellen Prentiss King. Dr. King, who is one of the unsung giants in American Education, administered Wayland for thirty years (1867-97) and stayed on as a professor for twenty additional years at both Wayland and at Virginia Union University. The King Gate at Virginia Union which currently faces Lombardy Street and is situated between Ellison Hall and the Baptist Memorial Building was named in his honor shortly before he died in 1917. Wayland Seminary itself was named in commemoration of the brilliant Dr. Francis Wayland, former president of Brown University and a leader in the anti-slavery struggle. Among the more eminent students to grace Wayland’s halls were: Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.; Dr. Booker T. Washington; Reverend Harvey Johnson of Baltimore, Maryland – pastor and early civil rights activist; Kate Drumgoold, author of A Slave Girl’s Story: Being an account of Kate Drumgoold (1898); and Albert L. Cralle, inventor of the ice-cream scoop.
