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At the 2024 PACME ceremony: (from left to right) Faye Z. Belgrave, Ph.D., vice president and chief diversity officer; Austin Ezzard, a social work student; Kim Case, Ph.D., professor of psychology and affiliate professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies; KáLyn "Kay" Coghill, a media, art and text student; Christina Davis, advisor and instructor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program; Shawn Utsey, Ph.D., professor of psychology and acting chair of the Department of African American Studies; Brooke Berry, interim associate vice president for strategic initiatives, inclusion & belonging; and VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. (Thomas Kojcsich, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

‘We are diversity’: Five VCU community members honored at the 2024 PACME ceremony

April 18, 2024

Shawn Utsey, recipient of the Riese-Melton Award, notes ‘how much work we still have to do. We cannot afford to become complacent in the face of injustice.’

Ana Edwards, an assistant professor of African American studies at VCU, has been interviewing members of the Family Representative Council, including Joe Jones and others who have been connected with the work going back to 1994. (Contributed photo)

VCU students, faculty document oral history of the East Marshall Street Well Project

April 2, 2024

The Health Humanities Lab, a research lab at VCU’s Humanities Research Center, is conducting the project in collaboration with the Family Representative Council.

“Remembering Paule: A Photo Memoir of Her Richmond Years” chronicles the friendship of Daryl Cumber Dance and Paule Marshall, the first tenured Black professors in the VCU Department of English. The photo on the cover was taken in March 1995 at Howard University when Dance and Marshall attended Toni Morrison’s gala establishing The Sterling A. Brown Chair.

In new book, Daryl Cumber Dance chronicles her ties to revered author and VCU colleague Paule Marshall

March 15, 2024

Photo memoir by retired English professor documents a friendship and legacy that the ‘truth warriors’ nurtured for decades.

Jacob Helt and Kimberley Neal-Helt caught each other’s eye at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus. (Tom Kojcsich, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Ram romances: Their first (and second) impressions were way off, but Kimberley Neal-Helt and Jacob Helt found their way to happy ‘havoc’

Feb. 13, 2024

VCU alums from 2015 and 2016 overcame mixed messages – and a rocky first date – and eventually tied the knot where they met.

Tarazha Jenkins, a triple major at VCU, has interned with Sen. Tim Kaine, Rep. Bobby Scott and the MSNBC show “All In With Chris Hayes.” (Tom Kojcsich, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Class of 2023: Tarazha Jenkins embraces the power of three majors

Dec. 13, 2023

Jenkins nurtures a passion for politics and communications that already has given her Capitol Hill and media experience.

Mignonne Guy, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies, is the recipient of the 2024 Pebbles Fagan Award. (Contributed photo)

VCU’s Mignonne C. Guy receives award for outstanding contributions through health-equity research

Nov. 17, 2023

Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco honors her commitment to public health.

Donald Sutherland in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978).

What’s your favorite scary movie? A horror film watch list for October.

Oct. 23, 2023

From "Candyman" to "The Wizard of Oz"(!), VCU students, faculty, alums and staff share hair-raising recs for the spookiest of months.

The three-year project was awarded a $3 million grant by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health. (Getty Images)

Ahead of FDA ban, a new project will assist providers in helping patients quit menthol cigarettes

Oct. 9, 2023

The project led by researchers at VCU and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is supported by a new $3 million grant.

A new initiative at VCU called the College-to-Career Blueprint program is working to make career-readiness a part of the conversations students and their professors are having as soon as they set foot on campus. (Getty Images)

Career readiness for students is the goal for VCU’s new College-to-Career Blueprint

Oct. 6, 2023

The program, launched this year in collaboration with nine departments in the College of Humanities and Sciences, will make career conversations, experiential learning and internships a more seamless part of students’ experience.

Shawn Utsey

Shawn Utsey appointed acting chair of African American Studies

Sept. 29, 2023

Utsey is a professor with joint appointments in the Department of Psychology and the Department of African American Studies.