BARBARA GAUNTT
BY RIVA BROWN
26 r. Velvelyn Foster’s five sisters and six brothers excelled at basketball or football. She was the only mediocre athlete. Everyone in her family can carry a tune with ease. She can’t sing a lick. “I didn’t get those kinds of talents,” says the valedictorian of the segregated Lincoln County Training School. “But I did get the talent of being persuasive, being a strong leader and being disciplined when it came to the books.” The youngest child of a railroad union leader and a homemaker made sure she brought those talents back to Mississippi – and to her alma mater – after she completed graduate degrees at Carnegie Mellon in Pennsylvania. Her upbringing and her involvement in the civil rights movement made her want to give back to the state that has given her so much. “My intent was to return to Mississippi to teach and to work with students and their parents in the black community to make sure that they understood the importance of education,” says the Bogue Chitto, Miss., native, “so they, too, could receive the education they needed to come back to the state.” POSITION
EDUCATION
FAMILY
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS AND STUDENT LIFE SINCE JULY 2006
B.S., social science, Jackson State University, 1964; M.A., history, CarnegieMellon University, 1967; D.A., history, CarnegieMellon University, 1970
HUSBAND, E C; SON, GARNET; DAUGHTER, SUNYETTA; STEPSON, TYRONE
AT JSU, SERVED AS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, DIRECTOR OF PROJECT ON INSTITUTIONAL RENEWAL THROUGH THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING, DIRECTOR OF THE LILLY POST-DOCTORAL TEACHING FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM, DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL SELF STUDY, SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS LIAISON, ASSOCIATE PROVOST AND ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS