Dr. Donald Reaves Donald Julian Reaves, Ph.D., is a semi-retired higher education senior executive with substantial corporate, not-for-profit, and financial services board experience. Donald’s higher education career began in the classroom, at Kent State University in Ohio, in 1977, and concluded in 2015 as Chancellor of an HBCU.
In 1980 Donald joined the faculty of Northeastern University in Boston, where for 13 years he taught undergraduate and graduate students in political science, public administration and public finance. While in Boston Donald spent four years as the deputy assistant commissioner for budget and cost control at the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare. From there Donald moved to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where he served 14 years in various finance positions, including nine years as Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). In 2002 Donald was recruited to the University of Chicago where he served five years as Vice President for Administration and CFO. Throughout his career in higher education Donald had hoped that one-day he would be asked to lead an HBCU. In 2007 that opportunity presented itself and Donald accepted the position of Chancellor at Winston Salem State University (WSSU), in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Donald describes the eight years that he led WSSU, as “the most fulfilling of his 38 year higher education career.” In 2013 his accomplishments were recognized when the new student union building was named the Donald Julian Reaves Student Activities Center. In 2015 Donald became Chancellor Emeritus of WSSU.
Currently Donald serves as lead director of Amica Mutual Insurance Company. Previous corporate board experience includes: Independent Trustee, William Blair Mutual Funds (lead director); Director, The American Student Assistance Corporation (board chair); Director, Bank Rhode Island and Delta Dental of Rhode Island; and, the Wells Fargo Advisory Board of North Carolina. These board assignments included serving as chair, lead director, nominating and governance chair, and audit committee chair, including qualification under SEC Regulations as Audit Committee Financial Expert.
Donald has also been active in the communities where he has resided, serving on hospital boards, as a trustee and board chair on college and university boards, and on numerous other not-for-profit boards and committees.
Donald and his wife Deborah are snowbirds, dividing their time between Lakewood Ranch, Florida and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.