He recalls that he learned to read from perusing the pages of Look and Life Magazines that his mom had plastered against the wall of the house to keep the cold wind out in the winter.

[3] He currently serves as the 10th President of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, having been appointed on July 1, 2010.

He was the first person in the history of the University of Wisconsin System to serve as Chancellor of two statewide institutions simultaneously.

He was a Fellow at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, served on President Barack Obama's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, named one of America's Best and Brightest by Dollars and Sense Magazine, named one of America's top 100 administrators by Change Magazine of the American Association of Higher Education, received the Distinguished Leadership for Engaged Scholarship Award from the University of Alabama, was part of the planning team that assisted in the formation of the University of Namibia in Africa, among countless other recognitions.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and as the 2023 recipient of the McGraw Prize in Higher Education.