Every Tuesday the D.J's Music Site HBCU Campaign Fund organization will highlight a HBCU Chancellor or President. This is in promotion of our social media campaign to bring awareness and support the excellence of historically black colleges and universities.

This Tuesday (10/6/15), we highlighted Colette Pierce Burnette, (pictured on the right), President and Chief Executive Officer of Huston-Tillotson University.

Colette Pierce Burnette was announced as Huston-Tillotson University sixth President and Chief Executive Officer on July 1, 2015. Pierce Burnette became the first female president of the merged Huston-Tillotson University and only the second female president in the institution's 140-year history.

Pierce Burnette earned her Master of Science Degree in Administration with honors from Georgia College in Milledgeville in 1983 after completing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Ohio State University in Columbus in 1980. In 2003, Pierce Burnette was accepted and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School's Education Management Development Program.

In 2012, Pierce Burnette served as Interim President at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington, leading the college within a district environment and working collaboratively with executive leadership to serve more than 30,000 students each year. Pierce Burnette had an extensive career at Central State University, an HBCU in Wilberforce, Ohio, from 1999-2012 that scaled to Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer where she provided financial, analytical, physical plant, auxiliary services, capital construction, and human resources leadership to achieve mission-based goals. In addition, at Central State University State University Pierce Burnette served as Vice-President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer.

She is affiliated with many organizations and hold membership in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Pierce Burnette is married to Dr. Daarel Burnette, a proficient administrator and consultant in higher education finance and fiscal leadership and is the mother of two children Daarel II, a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, and Daana, a public relations professional in New York, New York.

#ChooseHustonTillotson

For more information about Huston-Tillotson University, visit www.htu.edu.