Dr. William H. Harris’ career in higher education is both long and distinguished. He is a well renowned academician who has contributed to his field of study as a historian and served the higher education community as the president and chief executive officer for both public and private post-secondary institutions.
After studying and completing his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history at Indiana University, Dr. Harris began his professional educational career at Indiana University as an assistant professor of history. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a full professor of history as well as the associate dean of Indiana University’s graduate school and director of its minority fellowships program. Harris also was a Fulbright Professor and visiting professor of history at the University of Hamburg, Germany from 1977 to 1978.
At the age of 37, Dr. Harris assumed the presidency of Paine College in 1982, becoming one of the youngest college presidents ever appointed at that time. He served as the college’s chief executive officer for six years and subsequently led Texas Southern University as its president from 1988 to 1993.
In 1994, Dr. Harris came to Alabama State University as its tenth president and served with distinction until his retirement in 2000. Never one to shirk the call to serve, he briefly left retirement in 2005 to assume the role of interim president at Fort Valley State University and did the same thing in 2008 when he assumed the presidency of Texas College.
Awards, distinctions and accolades have been bestowed upon Dr. Harris during his many years as an educational leader. Such honors include being named a Distinguished Son of Fitzgerald, Georgia, his birthplace, one of only 10 individuals so honored during the city’s centennial celebration; recipient (with his wife Wanda) of a Trustees Special Leadership Award from the Paine College board of trustees; recipient of the Alumni Association Charles G. Gomillion Award; recipient of honorary Doctor of Laws and Doctor of Humanities degrees and recipient of the Trustees Special Service Award from Paine College. Harris also has been recognized by Indiana University with its Distinguished Alumni Service Award, the highest honor an alumnus can receive. He was also designated as one of the Fifty Most Influential Black Georgians.
Dr. Harris is the author of two books: Keeping the Faith: A. Phillip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, published in 1977 and reissued in 1991 by the University of Illinois Press; and the Harder We Run: Black Workers Since the Civil War, published in 1982 by Oxford University Press.
Dr. Harris is married to Wanda Fillmore Harris and the couple has two children, Cynthia and William J. Harris.