Yarbrough named new president at Savannah State

Dr. Earl G. Yarbrough Sr. has been named president of Savannah State University by the Board of Regent, yesterday.

Yarbrough currently serves as a full professor at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va.. He previously served as that school's provost and vice president for academic and student affairs.

Yarbrough is expected to begin his new post in July.

“Dr. Yarbrough was an extremely impressive finalist with two decades of experience as an academic administrator. He already has made significant contributions to three historically black universities, and we have every reason to believe he will do even more for Savannah State,” said Regent Elridge McMillan, chair of the Regents' Committee charged with interviewing the finalist.

In 2004, while a tenured professor of industrial technology at Virginia State University, Yarbrough completed a year-long fellowship in Washington, D.C., with the Kellogg Foundation Minority Serving Institution Leadership Program that prepares minority professionals for the challenges and rigors of becoming university presidents, chancellors or other senior leadership roles in higher education. He has also completed the Harvard University Institute for Educational Management.

Yarbrough also has administrative experience at two other public historically black universities, having served as the first dean of the School of Technology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C., from 1986 to 1998 and chair of the Industrial Technology Department at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in Pine Bluff, Ark., from 1984 to 1986.


As dean at North Carolina A&T, he built a student support center and played a key role in obtaining state funding for a new $8 million building, received more than $15 million in research grants and contracts, equipment and scholarships, added undergraduate and graduate programs, and established several 2+2 articulation agreements. As a department chair at the University of Arkansas, Yarbrough increased student enrollment in industrial technology programs by 25 percent and developed and implemented a successful technology transfer and symposium program.

Yarbrough earned a Ph.D. in industrial education from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, in 1976, a master of arts in industrial studies from California State University at Los Angeles in 1974 and a bachelor of arts in industrial education from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan., in 1969.