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Spelman College Announces New Vice President of Public Relations and Communications Share a Spelman College Press Release


For Immediate Release

Jazmyn Burton 
Spelman College 
jburton8@spelman.edu


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ATLANTA (March 1, 2022) Spelman College recently announced that Lydia G. Sermons has been selected to serve as Vice President of Public Relations and Communications. 

A Georgia native with a wealth of experience that spans health, racial and education equity, gender equality, mental health and historic preservation, Sermons has more than 25 years of communications and executive management experience in the private, government and nonprofit sectors. 

“Lydia will provide a boost to our media connections and help increase our visibility as we work to position the institution as a leader in the liberal arts landscape,” said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., president of Spelman. “We are excited to have her join the College as a key member of our Communications team.” 

Sermons most recently served as Vice President of Strategic Positioning and Alignment for Population Action International, a Washington, D.C.- based nonprofit that fights for the rights of women and girls abroad.

Previously, Sermons led former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms’ Communications Office as Chief Communications Strategist. Prior to relocating to Atlanta in 2019, she served in numerous high-visibility senior communications positions in Washington, DC, including The White House, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Treasury, Capitol Hill and the D.C. Mayor’s Office.

Sermons earned a Bachelor of Arts from Temple University and started her career in Philadelphia as a Public Affairs Producer & Station Services Manager for WCAU-TV (NBC 10). She went on to earn a Master of Arts in Communications from American University, Washington, D.C.

About Spelman College
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a leading liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, the College’s picturesque campus is home to 2,100 students. Spelman is the country's leading producer of Black women who complete Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The College’s status is confirmed by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Spelman No. 54 among all liberal arts colleges, No. 24 for undergraduate teaching, No. 4 for social mobility among liberal arts colleges, and No. 1 for the 15th year among historically Black colleges and universities. The Wall Street Journal ranked the College No. 3, nationally, in terms of student satisfaction. Recent initiatives include a designation by the Department of Defense as a Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM, a Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute, the first endowed queer studies chair at an HBCU, and a program to increase the number of Black women Ph.D.s in economics. New majors have been added, including documentary filmmaking and photography, and collaborations have been established with MIT’s Media Lab, the Broad Institute and the Army Research Lab for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Outstanding alumnae include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer, political leader Stacey Abrams, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman’s first alumna president Audrey Forbes Manley, actress and producer Latanya Richardson Jackson, global bioinformatics geneticist Janina Jeff and authors Pearl Cleage and Tayari Jones.

For more information, visit Spelman College.

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