Sankofa Pinning Ceremony

Gabe Willis, Ph.D

Dr. Gabe Willis is an accomplished higher education professional with extensive expertise in policy development, student advocacy, risk management, and crisis intervention. He currently serves as the Associate Vice President and Dean of Student Advocacy at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where he oversees key areas including the Office of the Dean of Students, the Office of Student Advocacy, Fraternity and Sorority Life, and Student Conduct and Academic Integrity.

Before joining VCU, Dr. Willis served as Dean of Students and Deputy Title IX Coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he led initiatives that supported student well-being while developing comprehensive responses to crises.

Dr. Willis holds a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration, along with advanced degrees in Exercise Science and Health Promotion.

Kwame Alexander

Kwame Walker, raised in Newport News, Virginia, is a B.S.W. Senior in the VCU School of Social Work, where he plans to graduate in the spring 2025. He defines himself as a future social work practitioner, researcher, archivist-scholar, and creative. Kwame has multidisciplinary interests in mental health, suicide awareness and prevention, youth development, advocacy, and humitanties/ social siences research. Importantly, he is dedicated to supporting underrepresented stories of healing and resilience through a social justice lens in Richmond, Virginia.

Denise Anderson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/t-denise-anderson/

Denise Anderson (B.F.A.’01), an artist, writer and minister, studied graphic design and African American studies at VCU and earned a Master of Divinity from Howard University in 2008. She is an ordained minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She served in the denomination’s highest elected office from 2016-18, advancing the church’s antiracism and anti-poverty efforts. She now serves as director of PC(U.S.A.)’s Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries, which focuses the church’s humanitarian, anti-poverty and creation justice work, as well as its advocacy, on Capitol Hill and the United Nations. As an artist and writer, her work centers Black beauty, struggle and audacity, and she provides social commentary using canvas, print and pulpit.

Erika Nixon-Lambert

Erika Nixon-Lambert is a graduate of VCU and made a career change and decided to return to VCU to pursue her Pharm D. She is a P3 at the VCU School of Pharmacy and the current president and co-founder of the Black Student Pharmacy Organization (BSPO) where she has been the president for 2 years and she is the current president of The Pharmacy Leadership Society (PLS) at the VCU SOP.