JACKSON Miss.—The College Board unanimously voted Tuesday to appoint William Bynum as the next president of Mississippi Valley State University.
Bynum, most recently vice president of enrollment management and student services at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, was confirmed after meeting with students, faculty and alumni in Itta Bena.
“It is an awesome blessing to be the seventh president of Mississippi Valley State University. I prepared for this, obviously, for my lifetime,” said Bynum, who has been part of programs to prepare presidents for colleges that serve minority populations.
Shane Hooper, of Tupelo, the College Board member who led the search committee that chose the 51-year-old Bynum, said Bynum was the right person to reverse the declining number of students at Mississippi’s smallest public university.
“He’s coming to us with more than 25 years of experience,” Hooper said. “He has a proven track record in enrollment and enrollment is what the Valley needs right now. We’ve got to increase the enrollment before we can do some other things we want to do.”
Bynum was chosen in a closed search as the sole finalist from among more than 70 applicants. He left his position at Morehouse earlier this year when John Wilson took over as president there; Bynum a difference in philosophy. Wilson, though, supported Bynum’s candidacy at Valley.
“Dr. Bynum was an effective leader at Morehouse,” Wilson said in a statement issued by the College Board. “I expect that he will be a student-friendly president with an impressive vision and execution strategy for Mississippi Valley State University.”
