UNC Pembroke has appointed six new members to its Board of Visitors––Dr. Adell Baldwin, Pardon Ndhlovu, Avery Locklear, Lydia Locklear, Mark Ward and Madison Wilcox. They are all UNCP alumni.

The Board of Visitors is appointed by Chancellor Robin Gary Cummings and comprises alumni and non-alumni members from across the region and state. It represents major stakeholders in education, legal, health services, industry and the public sector.

The board assists in communicating the university’s message, increasing community and corporate engagement, providing philanthropic support and recruiting high-caliber students.

Dr. Baldwin, a two-time UNCP graduate, is the superintendent of Scotland County Schools. He assumed the role in 2023 after serving more than 25 years in various roles in public education in North and South Carolina. Baldwin previously served as a principal in the Marion County School District. Before that, he served as the chief operations officer for the Center for Responsive Schools in Massachusetts, the chief operations officer for Scotland County Schools, a CTE director, principal, assistant principal and dropout prevention counselor for Hoke County Schools and as a principal for Bladen County Schools. 

Ndhlovu, is a 2013 graduate and a professional long-distance runner. He was a four-time all-American cross country and track and field performer. A four-time All-Peach Belt Conference standout, he won the 2011 and 2012 Peach Belt Conference Men’s Cross-Country Championship and was named the PBC Runner of the Year both seasons. He also competed in track and field in his senior season and was named the PBC Men’s Track Athlete of the Year, winning the 1,500-, 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs. Ndhlovu was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023. Still, the highlight of his career came seven years earlier when he finished 41st in the marathon event for his home country, Zimbabwe, at the Summer Olympics in Rio. He continues to give back to his alma mater, most recently participating in a student-alumni panel during Braves Kickoff––an annual event marking the beginning of the new academic year.    

Avery Locklear was a standout athlete and previously served as a moderator at Braves Kickoff. After graduating with honors in 2019, she earned her juris doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill and now practices law as a labor and employment attorney in Wilmington. At UNCP, Locklear became the first women’s basketball player to earn the Peach Belt Conference Elite 15 Award. Locklear’s 4.0 GPA was the highest among the more than 100 student-athletes in the 2017 conference tournament. Locklear was named Outstanding Student of the Year for the History Department, served as Kappa Delta Sorority vice president and was a member of the Maynor Honors College. During her senior year, she was the only PBC student-athlete named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District Women’s Basketball Team. 

Lydia Locklear, a 2014 graduate, is the deputy tribal attorney for the Catawba Indian Nation. Locklear earned a degree in American Indian studies with a minor in biology before earning a juris doctorate at Michigan State University and received a certificate in Indian law from the Indigenous Law and Policy Center. While at Michigan State, she served as president of the Native American Law Students Association and vice president of the Christian Legal Society. The Pembroke, N.C., native later completed a judicial clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls and served on the Pre-Law Summer Institute's (PLSI) Judicial Clerkship Committee, which prepares Indigenous students for judicial clerkships. She also completed an externship with the Department of Justice in the Office of Tribal Justice in Washington, D.C. 

Ward has served as Scotland County’s Economic Development director since 2016. Before that, he worked for two decades in the Laurinburg banking industry as a branch manager of Wells Fargo Financial and later as vice president of First Bank. For over 20 years, Ward managed loan portfolios exceeding $40 million in volume per year, hired, trained and supervised staff in presentations, lending requirements and sales strategies and helped achieve profitability and market share growth for the banks he worked with. A 1994 graduate of UNCP, Ward later attended the North Carolina Banking School at UNC Chapel Hill. He is a member of the Southeastern Economic Development Commission and treasurer of the Laurinburg Optimist Club.

Wilcox, a 2016 UNCP graduate, was heavily involved on campus throughout her college career and was a member of the Maynor Honors College. She became a student ambassador. In her first year, she developed the idea for a program to foster the inclusion of children with disabilities. Two years later, the Sports Empowerment Program became a reality, bringing students from the local community together with students, faculty and staff to participate on an inclusive softball team. After UNCP, she earned a master’s degree in occupational therapy from East Carolina University and joined the Therapy Playground team in Fayetteville. In 2023, Wilcox was named the recipient of the Young Alumna Award at UNCP.

For more information about the Board of Visitors, including a complete list of the members, visit the board’s website.