Campus Compact is excited to welcome three new members to its Board of Directors: Dr. F. Javier Cevallos, president of Framingham State University in Massachusetts; Dr. Jessica Howard, president and CEO of Chemeketa Community College in Oregon; and Dr. Lily D. McNair, president of Tuskegee University in Alabama.

“Campus Compact is thrilled to welcome this group of extraordinary leaders,” said Katherine Conway-Turner, President of SUNY Buffalo State and chair of the Campus Compact board of directors. “Each brings a track record of institutional transformation, deep commitment to the public purposes of higher education, and a longstanding commitment to the work of Campus Compact. We are certain that their collective experience, creativity, and passion will enable us to achieve great impact in the years ahead.”

Dr. F. Javier Cevallos began his tenure as President of Framingham State University in 2014. He previously served for 12 years as the president of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
Cevallos was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, and his family moved to Puerto Rico when he was 14. Cevallos earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. From Puerto Rico, he moved to Illinois where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His area of research is Latin American literature, with particular emphasis in the Colonial era.

He began his career as an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Maine. He then spent 18 years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he held many positions, including chair of the department of Spanish and Portuguese and vice chancellor for student affairs.

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Dr. Jessica Howard has been the President and CEO of Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon since 2019. Previously, she served as the campus president for the Southeast Campus of Portland Community College in Oregon.

Howard grew up primarily in San Antonio but was born in Bombay, India, and lived as a child in Bangkok, Thailand. She also spent a year abroad at King’s College in London during her college years. She considers her international experiences to be formative,

Howard holds a Ph.D. from New York University and, from Rice University, a master’s and two bachelor’s degrees. Her academic work has been interdisciplinary and based in the arts and humanities.

Earlier in her career, Howard enjoyed a long tenure at San Antonio College in Texas. There she served as an assistant and associate professor, a faculty department chair, interim executive vice president (over student and academic affairs), and ultimately as the vice president for academic affairs.

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Dr. Lily D. McNair began her tenure as Tuskegee University’s eighth president in 2018. Her appointment as Tuskegee’s first female president came after a 30-year career spanning experience as a university educator, researcher, and executive, and in private practice as a clinical psychologist.

McNair grew up in a small town outside McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey in a community as culturally diverse as her own household. Her father, who worked for the Air Force, is African American, and her mother was Japanese.

A clinical psychologist by training, McNair holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Princeton University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her research has focused on developing and evaluating community-based interventions targeting substance use and early sexual behavior in African-American youth.

Before her tenure at Tuskegee, McNair’s academic career included a variety of teaching and administrative appointments, which culminated in her role as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at New York’s Wagner College.

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