Dr. Gloria J. Gibson was appointed president by Northeastern Illinois University's Board of Trustees on March 15, 2018. She assumed the role on June 1, 2018.
Prior to coming to Northeastern, Gibson served as provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Morgan State University. A native of East St. Louis, Illinois, Gibson’s academic career began with both a master’s and bachelor’s degree in music education from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She then earned a Ph.D. in Folklore with a concentration in ethnomusicology from Indiana University at Bloomington.
At Indiana University, starting in 1995, she served as an associate professor in a variety of departments, including Afro-American Studies, Communications and Culture, and Folklore and Ethnomusicology. She also served as IU’s director of the Archives of Traditional Music as well as associate vice chancellor for the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
In 2004, she went to Arkansas State University, where she was the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2009, she accepted the role of executive vice president and provost at the University of Northern Iowa, where she was also a professor (with tenure) in the Department of Communication Studies.
More recently, she moved to Baltimore in 2015 to serve as senior vice president and provost at Morgan State University, which is one of the largest federally designated Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and the largest HBCU in Maryland. At Morgan State, Gibson led the development and approval of several online programs, established the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, provided leadership in the university’s pursuit of reaccreditation, and built strong relationships with shared governance bodies, among other things.
Gibson has two adult sons, Antonio and Kristopher, and close relatives living in the Metro-East Illinois area.