FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2008
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 242-1694

SACS president to address MUW graduates on May 10

COLUMBUS, Miss. – Dr. Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission
on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, will
speak at Mississippi University for Women’s graduation on Saturday,
May 10.

She will speak at both services, which will be held in Rent Auditorium,
Whitfield Hall.

Conferring of degrees for the College of Business, College of Nursing
and Speech Language Pathology and the Culinary Art Institute will be at
10 a.m. The ceremony for the College of Arts and Sciences and the
College of Education and Human Sciences will start at 1:30 p.m. The Mag
Chain ceremony will be held at 8 a.m.

Wheelan is the first African-American and the first woman to serve as
president of SACS, and her career spans 33 years and includes the roles
of faculty member, chief student services officer, campus provost,
college president and secretary of education. In several of those roles
she was the first African-American and/or woman to serve in those
capacities.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Trinity University in Texas
with a double major in psychology and sociology; her master’s from
Louisiana State University in developmental educational psychology and
her doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in educational
administration with a special concentration in community college
leadership.

Wheelan has received many awards and recognition including four
honorary degrees; the Distinguished Graduate Award from Trinity
University (2002) and from the College of Education at the University of
Texas at Austin (1992); Washingtonian Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful
Women in Washington, DC (2001); and the AAUW Woman of Distinction Award
(2002).

She holds and has held membership in numerous local, state and national
organizations including Rotary International; Alpha Kappa Alpha
Sorority, Inc.; the American College Testing, Inc., board of directors;
American Association of Community Colleges’ board of directors; and
the President’s Round Table of the National Council on Black American
Affairs.

Dr. Wheelan attributes her success to hard work, endurance, tenacity
and being in the right place at the right time. She recognizes that
prayer and support from family and friends make anything possible.

She is the mother of an adult son named Reginald.