Press Releases

For Immediate Release
January 7, 2010

For more information, contact
Cherise Oakley
(585) 395-2754
coakley@brockport.edu

Tuskegee University President Benjamin F. Payton, PhD to Give
MLK, Jr. Memorial Lecture

LECTURE POSTPONED - Details to Follow

Benjamin F. Payton, PhD

Brockport, NY – Benjamin F. Payton, PhD, president of Tuskegee University, will deliver the 27th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture at 7 pm, Tuesday Feb. 9, in the Seymour College Union Ballroom, on the campus of The College at Brockport, State University of New York.

Payton’s talk is sponsored by The College at Brockport’s Department of African and African-American Studies Department and is free and open to the public.

Payton is Tuskegee University’s fifth president, serving since 1981. He recently announced that he will retire in June of this year. Tuskegee was founded in 1880 and its first president was Booker T. Washington.

Payton is credited with leading a makeover of the learning environment at Tuskegee University. During his tenure the University added the General Daniel "Chappie" James Center for Aerospace Engineering and Health Education, the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, and the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center. The school has also made strides in the significant academic, research and training enhancement in the School of Veterinary Sciences.

In addition, two doctoral programs have been launched under Payton's leadership - one in Materials Science and Engineering and another in Integrative Biosciences. More than $300 million has been invested in student scholarships and campus infrastructure. At the same time, the university's endowment grew from $15 million to more than $102 million.

Payton was named to chair the Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities by former president George W. Bush, while President George H. Bush named him to lead a Task Force on Agricultural and Economic Development to Zaire. He also was appointed to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development by President Ronald Reagan.

Payton has earned degrees from South Carolina State University, Harvard University, Columbia University and a PhD from Yale University. He has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Howard University, Benedict College, Lehigh University, Morgan State University, Florida Memorial, Eastern Michigan, Morris Brown, South Carolina State, and the University of Maryland.

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The College at Brockport, State University of New York
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