Dear Colleagues:
Please join me in welcoming Bonita J. Brown as our inaugural vice president and chief strategy officer. Bonita will join us on August 1, tasked with campus-wide oversight and execution of our Success by Design strategic framework.
It became clear during our national search process that Bonita had the experience and skills to manage complex change initiatives in a collaborative way, engage others in challenging convention and encouraging innovation, with a strong commitment to and success with achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Bonita currently serves as the vice president for Network Engagement at Achieving the Dream, a national non- profit leader that champions evidence-based institutional improvement in community colleges across the country. In this role, she is responsible for supporting a network of over 220 community colleges in 41 states as they work to implement sustainable, campus wide student success efforts. Prior to her role at Achieving the Dream, Bonita served as the director of Higher Education Practice with the Education Trust in Washington D.C. While at the Education Trust, she created and led an initiative entitled Optimizing Academic Success and Institutional Strategy (OASIS), which was a national network of regional, comprehensive, minority serving institutions that enroll large numbers of low-income students and students of color.
Over the course of her career, Bonita served as the vice chancellor and chief of staff, and as assistant secretary to the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has also served as the chief of staff at the University of North Texas, general counsel at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and assistant attorney at Winston-Salem State University. She has participated in the HERS Leadership program, the AASCU Millennium Leadership Initiative and is a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management. Bonita received her BA in history from Wake Forest University and her JD from Wake Forest University School of Law. She is married to Wesley Brown and has two children, Joshua Brown, a student at Morgan State University and Myliah Brown, a student at Bridgewater College in Virginia.
My since thanks to the search committee for their hard work and to the entire campus for taking part in the process and sharing their feedback.
I look forward to working with Bonita to ensure NKU is constantly innovating, adapting and executing in an iterative process as we stay responsive to the needs of the region and beyond.
Sincerely,
Ashish
