Fayetteville State Names New Chancellor

Fayetteville State University

and the person filling the post willbe the third woman to lead a state university.

The University of North Carolina Board of Governors votedWednesday to name T.J. Bryan as the 10th chancellor at thehistorically black state university. She takes office July 1 afterchancellor Willis McLeod retires as chancellor June 30. McLeod willtake a leave and return as a professor.

Bryan is vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at thePennsylvania State System of Higher Education. She will have athree-year contract and earn $187,000 per year.

The 57-year-old Bryan also will provide a state-owned car forofficial business and use of the chancellor's house.

"I am confident she is the right person to lead FSU through aperiod of dramatic growth and transformation," UNC President MollyBroad said.

Bryan's given name is Thelma Jane, but she said she prefers tobe known as T.J. because she got the nickname when she was 18.

A native of Scotland, Md., Bryan is the third woman to beelected chancellor of one of the 16 member institutions of theUniversity of North Carolina during Broad's tenure.

Marye Anne Fox was named chancellor of North Carolina StateUniversity in 1998, and Rosemary De Paolo will take office atUNC-Wilmington on July 1 for a three-year term.

Bryan is the first black woman chancellor in the universitysystem, board member W. T. Brown of Fayetteville said.

Bryan taught English at Coppin State University in Baltimore for20 years. As a dean and department head at Coppin, Bryan said, shealways created and directed programs that connected her withstudents.

She said she was a first-generation college student in herfamily and she tried to help her own students as her professors hadnurtured her at Morgan State College in Baltimore.

"Our professors -- indeed the whole university community -- letus know that we were expected to excel," she said. "Within thiscommunity, I was nurtured, but never indulged."

She said she liked coming to Fayetteville State because"historically black colleges and universities have been at thecore of my adult life."