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The UNC System Board of Governors unanimously approved S. Keith Hargrove as the next chancellor of Elizabeth City State University on Thursday.
Hargrove is a long-time academic who has worked at several historically Black colleges and universities, most recently serving as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Tuskegee University in Alabama.
“As a leader of Tuskegee University, Dr. Hargrove knows the responsibility and legacies that HBCUs carry, the energy and depth of commitment among their alumni, [and] the importance of offering a welcoming home for all students to realize their ambitions,” UNC System President Peter Hans said at a Board of Governors meeting Thursday. “I am enormously hopeful about his plans for Elizabeth City.”
The selection of Hargrove marks the end of the system’s recent marathon of chancellor searches. Eight new university leaders have been named in the past year and a half. Hans has said there were more openings than usual because of delayed retirements during the pandemic.
In the past few months, North Carolina State University named Kevin Howell as the successor to long-time Chancellor Randy Woodson, and Appalachian State University selected Heather Hulburt Norris to assume the top job after serving as interim chancellor for nearly a year.
Prior to working at Tuskegee, Hargrove was dean of the College of Engineering at Tennessee State University, a public HBCU where he completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. He also worked as a professor and department chair at Morgan State University in Maryland. Before that, Hargrove was a professor at Tuskegee for nearly a decade.
Hargrove will take the helm on June 15, succeeding interim Chancellor Catherine Edmonds. Former Chancellor Karrie Dixon left the position last year to lead North Carolina Central University in Durham.
In a nomination speech, Hans lauded Hargrove’s academic and administrative leadership, calling him “an engineer by training and a rigorous and disciplined thinker by disposition.” Hans also spotlighted Hargrove’s previous work building partnerships with the private sector and his enrollment growth efforts at Tuskegee.