William Latham

Interim Vice President for Student Affairs

Dr. William U. Latham is the interim Vice President for Student Affairs at Stockton University. Prior to this role, he served as the Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Development at Virginia Union University. Dr. Latham held an eight-year tenure as the Chief Student Development and Success Officer at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) in Washington, DC, where he oversaw the Division of Student Development and Success. Dr. Latham centers his work in fostering an engaging culture for staff and building a dynamic student experience through meaningful co-curricular programs and experiential learning opportunities to promote retention and persistence toward graduation.

Dr. Latham preceded his time at UDC as a Senior Advisor for the Gallup Education Practice in Washington, D.C. At Gallup, Dr. Latham created and facilitated learning experiences for senior executive leaders, educators and students using a Strengths-based approach to improving wellbeing and achieving success in career and in life. He designed Strengths-based strategies as well as effective organizational performance strategies. He led team-building sessions and provided executive performance insights for university presidents and other senior education and corporate executives. Dr. Latham is a certified Gallup Learning & Development Consultant and a certified Gallup Strengths Coach & Facilitator.

Dr. Latham also spent 12 years as an administrator and adjunct faculty member at Tennessee State University (TSU) in Nashville, Tennessee, where he served as Associate Director for Corporate Development, Leadership Studies and Service Learning for the TSU Honors Program. There, he developed the leadership program, chat lecture series, alumni affinity group, and corporate partnerships of the program. He also served as an adjunct professor in the Honors program and developed four leadership courses modeled from Harvard Business School curricula. Through the development of a new paradigm of honors program initiatives specifically focused on leadership curriculum, an honors internship program and student leadership conferences, students received a global skill set of development, training and practical experience. Dr. Latham also co-founded the D.R.E.A.M. Project (male peer-to-peer) mentoring project at TSU. This project developed young men through holistic leadership training and development utilizing specific tools such as Gallup Strengths Finders, career assessment and soft skill analysis. To date, this project enjoys a 90% retention rate at Tennessee State University for its participants.

A strong advocate for experiential student development, Dr. Latham served as the faculty advisor for Opportunity Funding Corporation Business Plan Competition for TSU for 11 years. In this capacity, he led a team of undergraduate students to compete in a national MBA level competition, winning the Challenge in 2006. He also had the pleasure of serving as the Campus Coordinator for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF). This opportunity provided unique training and development for students that attended the TMCF Leadership Institute in New York, NY; garnering full time employment with such companies as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and the Gallup Organization.

Having an interest in public scholarship, Dr. Latham has been the recipient of the Kettering Foundation’s Public Scholars Fellowship, Babson College HBCU Case Fellowship and the Community Leadership Award from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Prior to joining the TSU Small Business Development Center as Director in 2000, Dr. Latham was a Commercial Loan Officer for the Minority Capital Fund of Ms., Inc. (MINCAP).  He was also a Financial Analyst in the Commercial Credit Department at Trustmark National Bank in Jackson, MS.

A graduate of Morehouse College, Dr. Latham received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Accounting, and a Master of Professional Accountancy and Ph.D. in Urban Higher Education from Jackson State University.