Bill Keyes

Board Member

Bill Keyes was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2015. He has served as Secretary, chairman of the External Relations Committee, vice chairman of the University Affairs Committee, and member of the Personnel Committee.

Prior to his election to the Board of Trustees, Keyes served on the Board of Visitors, the Graduate Education Advancement Board, the Board of Advisors of the School of Media and Journalism, the Board of Directors of the Media and Journalism Foundation, and the Advisory Board of the Leadership Institute, which he helped to create. He recently joined the Senior Advisory Board of the UNC Institute of Politics. He is honored to have been tapped for the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society.

Keyes is a native of Washington, NC but has worked in Washington, DC for four decades. He has worked on Capitol Hill and served as a White House Senior Policy Advisor. However, his most important work has been the establishment and direction of the Institute for Responsible Citizenship, which serves some of America’s best and brightest African American male college students. Institute alumni have become Rhodes Scholars, Fulbright Scholars, Truman Scholars, and the recipients of many other honors and awards.

For his extensive work in education, Keyes was presented the Mac A. Stewart Distinguished Award for Service by the Todd A. Bell National Resource Center at Ohio State University, the Dr. Asa G. Hilliard Model of Excellence Award from the College Board, and the Warrior Award at the 2017 International Colloquium on Black Males in Education.

He earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies, with a special focus on rhetorical criticism, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Keyes and his wife, Lola, live in McLean, Virginia.