Contact:
LaChauna Sumpter
Public Relations
919-546-8269
lsumpter@shawu.edu

 
For Immediate Release

 



Shaw University Named Dr. Kim Leathers Dean of the Honors College 

Raleigh, NC -- (January 27, 2004) -- Shaw University named Dr. Kim Q.B. Leathers dean of the Honors College in September 2004. Her primary responsibilities are to help shape, direct, and further define the lives of high achieving students via curriculum development, and academic and socio-educational activities. 

For over a decade Dr. Leathers worked as the associate director/research director of the International Faith Community Information and Services Clearinghouse and Training Center (ISC), at the Howard University School of Divinity (HUSD). She was instrumental in the divinity school’s leap into distance education; and she propelled its purpose of providing information on secular service delivery programs to the African-American church, and other faith communities. She facilitated daily operations, wrote grants, proposals, and reports for program development. Leathers also coordinated the School of Divinity’s efforts as a Regional Alcohol and Drug Awareness Resource (RADAR) Specialty Center through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, where she was a member of the national steering committee.

In her former position Leathers, has a major “first” to her credit. A recognized expert on the Black Church and African American denominations, she worked as the associate editor, writer, and contributor on the first edition of a landmark publication, the Directory of African-American Religious Bodies: A Compendium by the Howard University School of Divinity.

She also served as an adjunct faculty member, teaching writing and research methodology to Doctor of Ministry students. As the director of HUSD’s continuing education program, she oversaw its growth into a substantial entity of the School of Divinity, with over 300 participants annually. Also, she worked as a coordinator and instructor for the Ford Research Fellows Program.

Most recently Leathers has made several media appearances discussing the Black Church, and the life and work of Maggie L. Walker, the first female African American bank president in the United States, on whom she did significant research and wrote her Master’s thesis. 

Her community service includes work on the Nellie M. Quander Memorial Scholarship Committee, an endowed scholarship at Howard University, and as a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality advisory board.

Dr. Leathers earned her degrees from Howard University, in Washington, D.C.: the Bachelor of Arts in sociology; the Master of Arts in sociology, and the Doctor of Philosophy in sociology. 

Shaw University, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically Black institution in the South. Since 2003, the University has been under the leadership of Dr. Clarence G. Newsome. President Newsome’s leadership pursues the theme: “Strides to Excellence: Only the Best!”