Ben Vinson III, PhD, Named 18th President of Howard University

Ben Vinson III, the current executive vice president and provost at Case Western University, has been announced as the 18th president of Howard University.

Vinson will succeed Wayne A.I. Frederick in leading the Washington DC HBCU. Frederick is retiring after nearly a decade of leading the university.

Vinson, who will assume the presidency on September 1, expressed his excitement about the appointment, calling it the “honor of a lifetime”. He described Howard’s legacy, trajectory, and talented faculty and staff as “situated at the uppermost echelons of higher education” and pledged to work with the campus community to build upon the university’s tradition of delivering excellence, truth, and service to greater humanity.

The university released the following announcement video on Tuesday afternoon.

Vinson is a well-known historian of African diaspora with a focus on Latin America. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College with a double major in history and classical studies and his PhD in Latin American history from Columbia University. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his scholarship, including the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History for his book, “Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico”. Vinson has also been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, National Humanities Center, Social Science Research Council, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Ford, Rockefeller, and Mellon foundations.

Vinson expressed his eagerness to return to the DMV area, which he considers home. With his impressive record of scholarship and academic leadership, Vinson is expected to help Howard University continue to advance its mission and enhance its reputation as a leading institution of higher learning.