NEW ORLEANS — Today, Dillard University announced its participation in the Grow with Google HBCU Career Readiness Program. The initiative helps Black college students at over 30 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) prepare for the workforce through digital skills training and career workshops. Through a $3 million investment in the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), the program will train 100,000 Black college students by 2025.

NEW ORLEANS—President Rochelle L. Ford announced this week that Constance Cannon Frazier has joined Dillard University as the chief of staff and special assistant to the president. In her role, Frazier is coordinating and serving as a liaison with other senior executive officers on matters of interest to the president while also ensuring that the University runs effectively and efficiently.

NEW ORLEANS — Dillard University is one of five HBCUs that received coaching and technical assistance from the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) in the cohort that worked together to secure a 225K grant from the Teagle Foundation. The grants are designed to strengthen and advance liberal arts education. 

NEW ORLEANS – Dillard University’s Center for Racial Justice is partnering with the National PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) Coordinators Working Group to host the PREA Coordinators Fourth Annual National Conference at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO). The conference will take place August 3 and 4 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

NEW ORLEANS — Dillard’s Office of Community and Church Relations has received a grant of $10,000 through the AARP Community Challenge to support a community garden at Bethany United Methodist Church, located in Pontchartrain Park. 

From the first day of the ESSENCE Festival of Culture to the last, Dillard was represented in some way somewhere, seemingly everywhere. As thousands of elated festival fans converged on New Orleans, the Jewel of Gentilly found itself in the thick of one of Black America’s favorite celebrations. 

NEW ORLEANS—Dillard University has announced plans to offer a Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) in its College of Nursing. The degree will be offered in the fall 2023 semester pending approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN). The Louisiana State Board of Nursing accepted the program’s notification at its June 16 meeting. Once approved, the M.S.N. will be the first master’s degree in Dillard’s 153 year history.

Dillard has definitely been home to David Page. While Page did not attend Dillard, he is a Bleu Devil at heart, leaving 16 combined years of service to move on to the next stage of his career. His first stint on Gentilly Boulevard was from 1998 to 2005 as the associate director of financial aid. Page returned in 2013 to take the seat of vice president of enrollment management, a role that he feels has allowed him to make substantive change to the University’s recruitment, admission and enrollment services.

NEW ORLEANS — Dillard University’s Physics department, in partnership with NASA, IBM and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, are accepting applications for the free Dillard University – Quantum Computing – Women in STEM High School Experience in Summer (DU-QC-WISHES) summer program, which is a STEM based summer camp for females in grades 9-12. The camp will take place June 8-22 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in room 332 of the Professional Schools Building. 

NEW ORLEANS — Dillard University is partnering with Verizon and the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) to offer the Verizon Innovative Learning STEM Achievers program, which is a free project-based STEM learning program for middle school students beginning on June 6, 2022.

The idea behind the “Class Action” podcast was to feature law school students in the highly competitive world of mock trial, but the Jewel of Gentilly brought something different to the table. On the heels of their historic 2021-2022 season run, two members of the Dillard University Mock Trial Team are being featured in the twelve-part documentary series. Starting June 7, listeners will hear the inspiring story of the team’s season through the voices of DeAndré K. Bell II ‘23 and Lejeanne Shelton ‘22.

NEW ORLEANS —The Dillard University board of trustees announced, today, that Dr. Rochelle L. Ford, APR will serve as the University’s eighth president. Ford is currently the dean of Elon University’s School of Communications where she leads more than 80 faculty and 1,500 students with six undergraduate major programs of study and one graduate program. Ford is a 2021 fellow in Clark Atlanta University’s HBCU Executive Leadership Institute. Succeeding Dr. Walter Kimbrough, Ford will assume her role as president July 1, 2022.

New Orleans – The Dillard University athletics department announced today, May 19, that Norbert Rome, the school’s current Head Women’s Basketball Coach, has been named the Interim Athletics Director. He will officially take over in the interim role on June 1.

NEW ORLEANS—Dillard’s Office of Community and Church Relations will host an insurance risk assessment workshop for churches, homeowners, renters and businesses on Tuesday, May 17, at 11 a.m. in Georges Auditorium, located inside of Dillard’s Professional Schools Building. 

New Orleans – The Dillard University athletics department announced today, May 11, that Courtney Cadore, the current Head Cheerleading Coach of the Cheer Devils, is being added to the school’s administrative staff and will now also serve as the Assistant to the Athletic Director.

NEW ORLEANS—Dillard University has been fortunate to bring notable celebrity speakers to commencement over the years. But this year the University will introduce new celebrities–the class of 2022. The class is represented by students who have excelled through a two-year pandemic which included several major hurricanes and a myriad of personal challenges.

NEW ORLEANS—Dillard University will award honorary doctorate degrees to publisher Preston Edwards Sr. and Orleans Civil District Court’s Judge Kern Reese. Both will receive the Doctor of Humane Letters at the University’s 2022 Commencement, May 14, 8 a.m. on the Rosa Freeman Keller Avenue of the Oaks.

NEW ORLEANS—Chad Fuselier ‘22, Brinisha Hamilton ‘22, Nadia James ‘22 and Iman Wells ‘22 have received the distinction of valedictorian, and Priscilla Saarah ‘22 and Jermany Gray ‘22 have received the distinction of salutatorian for the Dillard University class of 2022. The students will lead their class, composed of 202 students, during the University’s 86th Commencement exercise on Saturday, May 14, 8 a.m., on the Rosa Freeman Keller Avenue of the Oaks on the Gentilly campus.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – The No. 15 nationally ranked Dillard’s women’s outdoor track and field program’s 4x400m relay team continued to make noise on the national level in placing fourth overall at the Penn Relays in the finals of the event on Saturday, April 30, at Franklin Field.

For Leith Hill, the connection between Dillard University and Brookhaven National Laboratory could be considered years in the making. “I learned about Brookhaven National Lab in 1989 when I began dating John Hill, who later became my husband, and have been connected to Brookhaven Lab (through marriage and community) since then,” says Hill. 

NEW ORLEANS —For a second year, Dillard University’s Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center (MHHDRC) is collaborating with Tulane University’s A Studio in the Woods (ASITW) for Inspiring Health Justice, A Collaborative Art-Science Scholar-in-Residence Program. The aim of Inspiring Health Justice is to bring the arts and public health together to address the New Orleans region’s long-standing health disparities. There will be a culminating program Friday, April 22, 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom at Dillard University.

NEW ORLEANS—Dillard University’s Division of Student Success will unveil a new esports gaming lab in the University’s Student Union in July. The lab will be home to the University’s new esports club, the Dillard Demons. The University partnered with CommunityX and Verizon who, in the summer of 2021, provided a grant of $200,000 to assist Dillard with space design, consultation on technology and equipment procurement. The funds will also be used to provide scholarships for women interested in gaming or STEM. The new lab will feature state of the art gaming furniture, desktops, keyboards, monitors, headsets and bold University branding.