Prior to his arrival at DSU, Mr. Atkins served over the last two years as the vice provost for Student Affairs at East Carolina University. In that capacity, he supervised 15 Student Affairs departments – 500 full-time employees and 13 unit heads – and administered division budgets totaling $77 million. His review of the university’s student center and multicultural center construction projects resulted in savings of approximately $20 million. Also early in his career, he was an assistant director of Undergraduate Admissions at that same institution from 1994-1996.

 

During a seven-year stint at the University of North Carolina, Mr. Atkins served as an assistant vice president for Academic and Student Affairs from 2007 to 2008, as the director of that same division from 2003 to 2007, and as the director for Programming and Operations, GEAR UP NC from 2001 to 2003.

 

He was also the director of ThinkCOLLEGE, a college access program for high school and college students in Charlotte, N.C. from 1996 to 2001. Part of the nation’s largest and most effective dropout prevention program, ThinkCOLLEGE serves the 37 school-Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C. area.

 

Mr. Atkins has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a minor in Communications Arts and a Master of Arts in English Literature with an emphasis in Postsecondary Instruction, both from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. He also completed the NASPA Institute for New Senior Student Affairs Officers.

 

Mr. Atkins replaces Dr. Paul Bryant, who left DSU to pursue other opportunities.

 

A national search for a permanent vice president of Student Affairs will be initiated at a later date.