NASHVILLE, TN — Education advocate Dr. Leonard Haynes III joins Dr. Bernard Lafayette as the presenting speaker at the ABC Presidential Scholarship Gala on Thursday, October 10 at the Downtown Renaissance Hotel, located at 611 Commerce Street. The reception is at 5:30 p.m. and the program begins at 7 p.m.
In his role in the U. S. Department of Education, Dr. Haynes was significantly important to ABC gaining HBCU status from that federal agency. “Dr. Haynes worked with us in a caring and supportive way to ensure we met all the requirements and guidelines,” said ABC President Forrest Harris.
“It was a pleasure for me to work with the ABC officials, particularly the president and Regina Prude as she unrelentingly met the challenge and addressed them fully to receive the HBCU designation,” said Haynes.
“ I was determined to see that ABC earned the HBCU designation, and continued to work with the local, state and federal agencies to secure that status. Dr. Haynes was critically instrumental to our cause, said Prude.”
President Harris added, “Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper’s Office, and especially Brenda Wynn, who worked with Congressman Cooper at that time, and others helped us get support from people who were instrumental in the process on the federal level.”
Haynes’ career in education has served on the faculty at Howard University, Ohio State University, University of Maryland, Southern University, Brookings Institution and George Washington University. While on the faculty at Southern University, he was appointed to the position of executive vice president. He later served as the assistant superintendent of academic programs for Louisiana’s State Department of Education and then as the senior assistant to the president of American University. During President George H.W. Bush’s administration, Haynes was the first African American to be appointed to the position of U.S. assistant secretary of postsecondary education and director of academic programs for the United States Information Agency (USIA). While with the USIA, Haynes worked to increase international education through cooperatives with Mexico, Canada and the European community. In 1997, Haynes was appointed to serve as the acting president of Grambling State University. President George W. Bush appointed Haynes to serve as the special assistant to the secretary of education in 2001, and in 2003 he was appointed to serve as the director of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education in the Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education.
Widely recognized for his work in the educational community, Haynes has offered his counsel to numerous organizations, including the Ford Foundation and the Merck Corporation.