Dear Howard University Community, 

The Howard University Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the election of two new Board members. 

Lena Hill, Ph.D. (BA ’97), provost and professor of English and Africana Studies at Washington and Lee University; and Carol Quillen, Ph.D., president & chief executive officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, joined the University’s Board of Trustees effective July 1.  

The new trustees bring a wealth of knowledge, academic leadership, and ingenuity to the Board, and will continue to help Howard University expand its global footprint while maintaining its position among the epicenters of academic excellence in the United States. We are delighted to welcome them.  

Dr. Lena Hill began serving as provost at Washington and Lee University in July 2021 after serving as dean of the College at Washington and Lee since 2018. 

Hill’s scholarship and teaching focus on African American literature and visual culture, and she is known internationally as a scholar of Ralph Ellison. She has published three books in addition to numerous articles and essays. She authored “Visualizing Blackness and the Creation of the African American Literary Tradition” (Cambridge, 2014), co-edited “Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa during the Long Civil Rights Era” (University of Iowa Press, 2016), and co-authored “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: A Reference Guide” (Greenwood, 2008). She serves on several boards including the National Humanities Alliance Board and the Modernist Studies Editorial Board. 

Prior to joining Washington and Lee, Hill was associate vice president and interim chief diversity officer at the University of Iowa, leading three major units of the university: the Center for Diversity and Enrichment, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the Diversity Resources Team. 

Hill graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University with additional study at Williams College in Massachusetts and Richmond College in Florence, Italy. She also holds a doctorate in English from Yale University. 

Learn more about Dr. Lena Hill

Dr. Carol Quillen is the 10th president and chief executive officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She is also a founding member of the American Talent Initiative (ATI), a consortium that annually aims to graduate 50,000 additional low- and moderate-income students from the nation’s top colleges and universities. 

Prior to her current position, Quillen served as the 18th president of Davidson College (2011-2022), where she sought to honor the institution’s abiding values—integrity, humane instincts, creativity, discipline, leadership, and service—within our rapidly evolving and increasingly interconnected world. To that end, she helped the campus define a vision founded on ensuring access and affordability, reimagining the liberal arts for today, and equipping graduates to have disproportionate impact for good. Quillen also strengthened the college’s commitment to meeting 100 percent of demonstrated financial need for all students with no packaged loans. 

Quillen earned a Bachelor of Arts in American history from the University of Chicago, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with special and general honors, and a doctorate in European history from Princeton University. 

Quillen is the author of two books and many articles. Her writings have appeared in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Huffington Post, The Hechinger Report, The Washington Post and The New York Times. 

Learn more about Dr. Carol Quillen
 

In Truth and Service,

Howard University Board of Trustees