The Association for Wake Forest University Black Alumni (AWFUBA) and the Program in African American Studies invite the public to attend the 2025 AWFUBA/AAS Annual Homecoming Lecture featuring Dana A. Williams, author of Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship - an NPR Spring Pick.

Dr. Williams will be in conversation with Shanna Greene Benjamin, Reynolds Professor of African American Studies, Wake Forest University and opening remarks will be given by Corey D. B. Walker, Dean, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, Director, Program in African American Studies. Books will be available for purchase onsite from The Bookhouse of Reynolda Village, Winston-Salem.

Dana A. Williams is the dean of the Howard University Graduate School. A specialist in contemporary African American Literature, Dana A. Williams earned her B.A. in English from Grambling State University in Grambling, LA in 1993, her M.A. in 1995 from Howard University, and her Ph.D. in African American Literature from Howard University in 1999. As a recipient of the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar award in 1999, she was a visiting research fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Before returning to Howard University as a faculty member in 2003, Dr. Williams taught at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for four years. In 2008-09, she was a faculty fellow at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University, and she assumed the chairmanship of the Department in 2009, serving three terms in that position. In 2019, she was appointed as interim dean of the Graduate School and then named permanent dean in 2021.