JoAnn Haysbert

After receiving her Ed.D from Auburn University, Haysbert held academic positions at the school, and also Virginia State University and Alexander City State Junior College, before her tenure at Hampton. At the historic, private "Black Ivy", she served in a variety of positions including its first acting president, provost, assistant provost, professor, coordinator of graduate programs, dean of freshman studies, assistant vice president for academic affairs, director of summer sessions, and director of the assessment and learning support center.

In 2005, after a 25-year career at Hampton, she succeeded Earnest Holloway to become Langston University's 15th president, serving through the end of 2011, when Kent Smith succeeded the post.

In 2012, she returned to Hampton to become its first Chancellor and Executive Vice-President, while also resuming her post as Provost.[7][8]

Born in Kingstree, South Carolina,[9] in 1948, Haysbert is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University (where she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first black college sorority in the U.S.), Auburn University,[10] and Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Institute for Educational Management.

She married Stanley Haysbert, a real estate developer (brother of actor Dennis Haysbert and nephew of businessman Raymond V. Haysbert), in 1980, and has five children.[11]