Dr. Wallis Baxter Appointed as Vice President of Academic Affairs

Dr. Wallis Baxter Appointed as Vice President of Academic Affairs

Interim President Ball asked Dr. Wallis Baxter III to serve as the Vice President of Academic Affairs, effective January 1, 2022. In this role, Dr. Baxter will be responsible for the development and implementation of the academic (which includes faculty management, curriculum development), library services, and student counseling and assessment (which includes monitoring student progress and personal counseling activities) components of the College and Seminary.

Reverend Wallis C. Baxter III, PhD attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, where he received the Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2006, majoring in English. Upon graduation, Dr. Baxter entered Duke University Divinity School where he served on the President’s Council on Black Affairs as well as President of the Black Seminarians’ Union. In 2009, Dr. Baxter graduated from Duke with his Master of Divinity Degree as well as a Graduate Certificate in African and African-American Studies. In the spring of 2017, he received his PhD in African American Literature from Howard University. He is anticipating his forthcoming publication entitled Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet: You Must be Born Again (January 2022). In addition, he is co-editing a two-volume series of sermons entitled Preaching During a Pandemic: The Rhetoric of the Black Preaching Tradition (Spring 2022).

Currently, Dr. Baxter serves as a Board Member with both the Baptist Convention of DC and Vicinity and the DC Baptist Convention. He is President of the Congress of Christian Education for the Eastern Region of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, President of the Progressive Baptist Convention of Maryland, immediate past President of the Langston Hughes Society, and founding President of Helping Hands of Maryland CDC, Inc. In addition, Rev. Baxter serves as an Academic Research Fellow at the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

Dr. Baxter has served as an adjunct professor at Gettysburg College and Georgetown University. Dr. Baxter has taught such classes as: African American Religious Thought, Black Women Writers, African American Literature, and Persuasive Writing.

Dr. Baxter serves as the Senior Pastor of the Second Baptist Church (formerly of Southwest DC) in District Heights, MD. He is married to Dr. Shayla Atkins Baxter, and they are the grateful parents of one son, Elijah.