| Ulysses B. Hammond 2008 Honoree |
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| Ulysses B. Hammond was a high school student in Washington, D.C., when he read an article that shocked him. The article said that African Americans were intellectually inferior, he says. Hammond immediately vowed to prove the writer wrong. "We were ready to show that we could compete," he says. "That day sparked a fire. I felt that I had received an excellent education at McKinley Tech and the public schools of D.C." Further signs of Hammond’s determination were shown in 1969, during high school, when he convinced The Washington Post editors to recognize McKinley’s basketball team, rather than a suburban team, as being No. 1 in the region. Hammond continued to achieve after high school. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and later received both a master’s degree in public administration and a juris doctorate degree from Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. |  |
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He currently is vice president for administration at Connecticut College, where he serves as the chief administrative and business operations officer, and is coordinator of the college’s legal and community affairs.
Previously, he served as chief executive officer of the District of Columbia Courts from 1990 to 2000, and was the first African American in the United States to administer an appellate and general judicial court system. Hammond’s professional experience capped a 22-year career as a judicial administrator, during which he also served as associate state court administrator for the Michigan Supreme Court and as court executive for the Third Judicial Circuit Court in Detroit.
"After you have done all you can, you just stand." |
Hammond’s numerous honors and awards for leadership and service include the 2006 Connecticut Man of the Year Award, and the "Measure of a Man" Award from the Washington Inter-Alumni Council of the College Fund/United Negro College Fund and the Tutoring for Success/Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today program in New London, Conn.
Hammond says he seeks to live by the words of gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, "After you have done all you can, you just stand."
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