Dr. Corey Wiggins
Tougaloo College's Board of Trustees on Friday named Dr. Corey Wiggins, a Mississippi native and the federal co-chair of the Delta Regional Authority, as the institution's 15th president.
He will assume the post July 1, succeeding Dr. Donzell Lee.
Dr. Blondean Y. Davis, chair of Tougaloo College's Board of Trustees, praised the appointment, saying Wiggins "is a visionary leader whose commitment to academic excellence, student success and institutional integrity aligns deeply with the historic mission of Tougaloo College."
The board, Davis added, "is confident that Dr. Wiggins possesses the leadership, experience and passion necessary to guide Tougaloo into its next chapter of growth and impact."
Wiggins currently leads the Delta Regional Authority, an independent federal agency that supports economic development across 255 counties and parishes in eight states throughout the Mississippi Delta and Alabama Black Belt. He is a presidential appointee who was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. Before his federal role, he served as executive director of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP.
Wiggins holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Alcorn State University and earned both a master's degree in public health and a Ph.D. in health promotion from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he taught courses in health policy, strategic management and the social determinants of health. He also holds a certificate in nonprofit leadership from Boston College and has completed fellowships with the Kaiser Family Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
