Associate Dean Wendy Scott is one of 36 administrators from universities across the United States selected to join the 2023 HBCU Executive Leadership Institute hosted by Clark Atlanta University.
An Elon Law administrator who directs the Office of Academic Success has been selected for a yearlong program aimed at building leadership skills and developing core competencies to succeed as presidents and executives of historically black colleges and universities.
Associate Dean Wendy Scott’s selection for the 2023 HBCU Executive Leadership Institute hosted by Clark Atlanta University places her among an elite group of higher education administrators representing operations, alumni relations, admissions, and academic programs.
Scott herself was nominated by Rochelle L. Ford, the former dean of Elon University’s School of Communications who in 2022 was named president of Dillard University in New Orleans.
Now in its third year, the HBCU Executive Leadership Institute offers programming on building teams and executive pipelines, developing networks, enhancing academic programs, and navigating boards and governance frameworks.
Fellows complete online and in-person programs during the spring and summer before they are paired with executive coaches who mentor them during the last half of the calendar year. Courses in the program will strengthen six core competencies for HBCU executives: social impacts, personal impacts, institutional impacts, serving the mission, creating capacity, and leading change.
“I’m excited! I like school!” Scott said with a laugh. “And I’m honored to be one of 36 fellows who are interested in growing their leadership skills. In the field of higher education, we tend to assume that if you’re good in your discipline, that translates into leadership. That’s not necessarily true.
“There are ways to identify a person’s leadership potential, but it’s not because they’ve been trained in a particular discipline – it’s because of their interest in institution building and service.”
The leadership institute is supported through several corporate and philanthropic partners: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, ECMC Foundation, Microsoft, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Toyota, and The Rich Foundation.
Scott joined the Elon Law administration and faculty in 2018 after serving as dean at Mississippi College School of Law, as associate dean for academic affairs at North Carolina Central School of Law, and as vice dean for academic affairs at Tulane University School of Law.
She is a nationally recognized scholar of constitutional law and school desegregation. She has taught Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Gender and the Law and Federal Indian Law.
Scott graduated from Harvard University and New York University School of Law. Her professional work included positions as a staff attorney at the Legal Action Center of the City of New York, as an associate at Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard in New York City, and associate counsel for the Center for Law and Social Justice.