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 Rocky
Mount, N.C.—The trustees of North Carolina Wesleyan College are pleased to
announce the appointment of Wesleyan’s sixth president, James A. Gray III, a
veteran fundraiser and communicator. The North Carolina native will assume
leadership of the independent liberal arts college on June 1.
He brings to Wesleyan more than a decade of experience in higher education
administration and fundraising, as well as a career in international business,
communications, and public relations that spans more than 20 years.
Most recently, Gray served the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as
Associate Dean for External Affairs of the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Before
that, he was Associate Dean for Marketing and Communications at Duke
University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Prior to returning to his home state, Gray served for eight years in top
management positions in New York. He was President of U.S. Operations for
London-based Citigate Communications. He also served as President of Public
Relations for Brouillard Communications in New York, the corporate division of
J. Walter Thompson, and President of Manning, Selvage & Lee/U.S., the ninth
largest public relations agency in the world.
A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate and Morehead-Cain Scholar,
Gray launched his career in communications in his native Winston-Salem before
spending 20 years in communications and public relations management positions in
Atlanta.
Wesleyan’s trustees selected Gray after an extensive search led by a Wesleyan
search committee, with assistance from RPA Inc., a national search firm. The
search generated more than 130 candidates from 32 states and two foreign
countries.
Vel Johnson, Vice Chairman of Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees and Chairman of the
Presidential Search Committee, said, “We are delighted to have Jim Gray join us
at Wesleyan. He has proven leadership and fundraising skills and has already
generated enormous energy and enthusiasm among those who have met him. Jim’s
wife Beth is a former educator and by all accounts a marvelous hostess with her
own culinary business, and we are confident she will also be a significant
positive addition to the College and the Rocky Mount community. We are excited
to open this new chapter in Wesleyan’s story. Jim Gray has an excitement about
North Carolina Wesleyan College which we believe will be contagious.”
Gray comes to Wesleyan with additional praise from others who know his abilities
well. Among them are Dr. Michael L. Lomax, President and CEO of the United Negro
College Fund and former President of Dillard University, and Thomas S. Kenan
III, a member of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Board of Visitors and a founder and
supporter of The University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
“Jim Gray is a wonderful choice to lead North Carolina Wesleyan College,” Lomax
said. “Over the more than three decades I’ve known Jim, he has demonstrated a
profound personal commitment to citizenship, to diversity, and to building
community. Now, Jim has found his calling in higher education. And he will bring
to N.C. Wesleyan all of his experience, passion, intellect, and commitment to
help this wonderful college become a national leader in producing a new
generation of college graduates for the 21st century.”
Speaking of Jim Gray in equally complimentary terms, Thomas Kenan said, “N.C.
Wesleyan will begin a new chapter in the life of that school with the arrival of
Jim Gray as its new president and his lovely wife Beth. Jim will be a strong
leader for Wesleyan and I am sure that the greater Wesleyan community will come
to love and admire the Gray family. Jim’s university experience will prove
invaluable in leading Wesleyan to new heights in the future.”
Gray has served on the board of directors of a number of community-improvement
organizations in Atlanta, New York, and North Carolina. He also has been active
as a member of The United Methodist Church. He is a member of University
Methodist Church in Chapel Hill and Duke Chapel in Durham.
Gray succeeds Interim President Dr. Stanley P. Caine, who has served Wesleyan
since last summer, following the departure of Dr. Ian Newbould. Although Gray
will officially become Wesleyan’s President on June 1, he will visit the College
a few days a week before then to facilitate the transition to his new position.
North Carolina Wesleyan College is an independent liberal arts college founded
in 1956 and affiliated with The United Methodist Church. Located on a 200-acre
wooded site in Rocky Mount, Wesleyan enrolls about 1,600 students on the main
campus and in Adult Degree Programs that help adults complete their bachelor’s
degrees in several disciplines on the Rocky Mount campus and in Goldsboro and
Morrisville. |
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