A historically black university (HBCU) in Nashville Tuesday announced that it has hired a new president to lead the school.
“The Board of Trustees of Fisk University announced today the appointment of Dr. Agenia Walker Clark as its next president, effective November 6, 2023,” said a release from Fisk University. “She will be the University’s third female head and the 18th president of the 158-year-old-university, one of the nation’s highest-ranking Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).”
Clark (pictured above) will replace Frank Sims, a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, who began serving in the role of president on an interim basis just over one year ago. Sims took over after the abrupt departure of Vann Newkirk, who vacated that role last August.
Clark served as the CEO of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee for the past 19 years. Before that, she was vice president of Human Resources for the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation, senior director of Human Resources at Vanderbilt University, and worked in human resources for the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel.
“Dr. Clark’s lifelong dedication to improving the lives of young people, along with her unique combination of fundraising and brand-building skills, are exactly what Fisk needs today,” said Juliette Pryor, chair of the Fisk Board of Trustees. “I know that Dr. Clark’s bold ideas will positively impact our campus community today while assuring a fast-growing trajectory for the future.”
Clark was dubbed “Nashvillian of the Year” in 2021 and one of “Nashville’s 100 Most Powerful People,” from 2015 to 2020 by the Nashville Business Journal.
She is also a member of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), which describes itself as “an invitation-only network of the most accomplished women in the world.”
“To serve a new generation of brilliant, socially minded students—not unlike their counterparts of decades past, like W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, John Lewis and Dr. Diane Nash—is surely the honor of my lifetime,” said Clark. “No institution of higher-ed has a richer legacy—or a richer promise for the future—than Fisk.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
Background Photo “Fisk University” by Paulmcdonald. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Nothing like appointing a person with a track record of nothing. Good luck to the students of Fisk.