Tomikia P. LeGrande, Ed.D., became the ninth president of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) on June 1, 2023. Her career in higher education is marked by successive leadership roles and professional achievements.
Before joining PVAMU, Dr. LeGrande served as vice president for strategy, enrollment management and student success at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she led the development and implementation of the university’s strategic plan, priorities, and goals to influence national prominence, strategic partnerships, and student access and success. Other senior level leadership roles prior to VCU include vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at the University of Houston-Downtown, and associate vice chancellor for enrollment management at Winston Salem State University.
Throughout her career, Dr. LeGrande’s focus has been on advancing equity, accessibility, and affordability in higher education. She works to create and sustain engaging and supportive cultures for faculty, staff and students resulting in positive institutional outcomes. She has been prolific in securing resources to support innovation and accelerate progress. In all of her career endeavors, Dr. LeGrande has created “cultures of care” utilizing her expertise in strategic planning, new technology implementation, change management, and policy and business process redesign. With a personalized approach, she engages at all levels of an organization– forming, deploying and managing cross-organizational teams that find solutions to impediments that may impact university progress.
The art of leadership is Dr. LeGrande’s passion. She creates challenging yet supportive environments that embolden the pursuit of wide-ranging and future-focused goals. She embraces developing and cultivating leadership at all levels of an organization and has documented success in procuring funds to support programmatic expansion and change.
As a two-time graduate of HBCUs, and having earned a doctorate in higher education leadership, Dr. LeGrande understands the transformative power of education in helping students dismantle class, social, and cultural barriers. She believes that centered and effective leadership in higher education can amplify and accelerate the social mobility of all students, but especially of those from communities that have been underserved and underrepresented.
At the national level, Dr. LeGrande is actively engaged in issues of access, parity, higher education policy and leadership development. She is a sought-after thought leader, and a regular presenter and facilitator on the topics of enrollment management, educational equity and student success. She testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor in 2019 during a hearing on “Innovation to Improve Equity: Exploring High-Quality Pathways to a College Degree.” She was also the recipient of the Governor’s “Champion for Change Award” for the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2021.
A native of Savannah, GA, Dr. LeGrande earned a B.S. in chemistry from Savannah State University, M.S. in chemistry from North Carolina A&T State University, and an Ed.D. from Texas Tech University.
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