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Day-Hairston to lead College of Education and Professional Studies at Fort Valley State University

Fort Valley State University (FVSU) has announced the appointment of Dr. Beth Day-Hairston as the next Dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies, effective January 1, 2021. She brings more than 20 years of faculty and leadership experiences in education to the new role at FVSU.

A former public-school special education teacher, Dr. Day-Hairston currently serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Education in the College of Arts, Sciences, Business, and Education at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). While serving as the Coordinator of Special Education at WSSU, she created strategies to help candidates maintain a 100% rate on the Praxis II licensure exam. This model has been adopted by other education programs to help increase the pass rate of candidates in the Educator Preparation Program. Within the last year as Chair of the Department of Education, she worked to increase the licensure test pass rate on Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators, Praxis Subject Assessments, and the Foundations of Reading/General Curriculum Pearson exam by instituting mandatory prep sessions, actions plans, meetings, boot camps, and course restructuring.

Dr. Day-Hairston earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Special Education from WSSU and a Master of Arts Degree in Special Education from Appalachian State University. She holds a doctorate in Special Education and Literacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Day-Hairston presents extensively at conferences at the local, state, and national level. While at WSSU, she secured close to $2.5 million in external funding. She is active in local organizations and has served at the national level in her professional organization, the Council for Exceptional Children, as the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders Multicultural Member-at-Large.