Truss selected to participate in national higher education leadership initiative

B. Donta Truss, Grand Valley's recently named vice president for Enrollment Development, has been selected to participate in a premier leadership development program of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).

Truss and 31 other senior-level higher education professionals will participate in AASCU's 2020 Millennium Leadership Initiative (MLI). MLI provides individuals traditionally underrepresented in the highest ranks of postsecondary education with the opportunity to develop skills and build the network and knowledge needed to advance to the presidency of a college or university.

The MLI Institute will include webinars that will focus in part on how to shape inclusive and effective learning environments and advance equity, diversity and social and economic justice across campuses. Participants will also have a yearlong mentorship with an experienced president or chancellor.

Truss will join Grand Valley on July 10. He is currently the senior vice president for Enrollment Management, Students Affairs and Student Success at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He earned a doctorate in educational leadership, policy and law; a master's degree in counseling; and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, all from Alabama State University.

Truss' background includes a concentration on student success initiatives resulting in enrollment and retention increases at three previous universities. He developed a center for emerging scholars that included the Students First Program, a support program for first-generation students, and held the first Black Male Symposium at Shippensburg to focus efforts on the graduation rates of Black men. 

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities is a Washington, D.C.-based higher education association of nearly 400 public colleges, universities and systems whose members share a commitment to underserved student populations and a dedication to research and creativity that advances their regions' economic progress and cultural development.