Harold Alonza Black, emeritus professor of finance at the University of Tennessee and notable University of Georgia alumnus, will deliver the fall undergraduate Commencement address at UGA on Dec. 15 in Stegeman Coliseum. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m., with the graduate ceremony to follow at 2 p.m.
Dale Greene, who has served as the dean of UGA’s Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources since 2015, will deliver the address at the graduate ceremony.
Black and two other students–Mary Blackwell Diallo and Kerry Rushin Miller–were the first African American students to enroll as freshmen and complete their undergraduate degrees at UGA. The university named its newest residence hall, Black-Diallo-Miller Hall, in their honor in 2022.
Black was also the university’s first African American graduate of the Terry College of Business. The Terry College has established the Dr. Harold A. Black Professorship in his honor.
Following his undergraduate studies, Black earned master’s and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University.
His faculty appointments include American University, the University of Florida, Howard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served for 24 years as the James F. Smith Jr. Professor of Finance at the University of Tennessee.
He has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve and at the Congressional Budget Office and has served as chairman of the Nashville branch of the Federal Reserve of Atlanta and on the boards of two of the nation’s largest financial institutions.
Black’s work has been published extensively in the leading journals in business and economics, and his consulting clients are among the country’s leading law firms and financial institutions.
He was also appointed by President Carter to serve on the first National Credit Union Administration Board.
Graduate speaker Greene joined the faculty of Warnell in 1986 before becoming dean in 2015.
During Greene’s tenure, the Warnell School added several new faculty members, expanded outreach efforts, and grew funding for research, professorships and graduate assistantships. Greene has led efforts to increase funding for teaching and learning, more than doubling the number of named professorships, scholarships and fellowships available to faculty and students.
He has served as an advisor to 49 graduate students, who today represent leaders in forest business, logistics, tree health, consulting and other fields.
Among his numerous teaching and professional awards, Greene received the Herrick Award for Superior Teaching and the Warnell Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Teaching. He was inducted into the Georgia Foresters Hall of Fame in 2007, received the Wise Owl Award from the Georgia Forestry Association in 2011 and was named a fellow of the Society of American Foresters in 2022.
Greene plans to retire on Jan. 1, 2024.
For more information about commencement logistics, please visit commencement.uga.edu.