Governor Appoints Lenora Ashford to Michigan Tech Board of Trustees

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has named Lenora D. Ashford, the dynamic principal of Lewis Cass Technical High School in Detroit, to Michigan Tech’s Board of Trustees. She was appointed to represent the general public, succeeding Norman A. Rautiola, whose term has expired.

The Board of Trustees is responsible for the general supervision of the institution and the control and direction of all University expenditures.

“We are delighted to welcome Lenora Ashford to our Board of Trustees,” said Michigan Tech President Glenn D. Mroz. “She and Cass Tech have consistently sent us some of our best students, and her work with young people there will enable her to offer us valuable insight into better ways to attract and retain talented students.”

Ashford, who has headed the magnet school for more than a year, has also served as assistant principal, science curriculum leader and head of the science department at Cass Tech. Honored as an Outstanding Educator by the Detroit Public Schools seven times, she also has received the Spirit of Detroit Educator Award, a Westinghouse Educator Award, and Science Educator Awards from the United States Navy and from Detroit Edison.

“She is the reason I am here at Michigan Tech,” said SherAaron Hurt, a junior studying finance and accounting in the School of Business and Economics. “She told me this is where I needed to go to college, and she was absolutely right.”

Since earning a Bachelor of Science from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and a Master of Education from Wayne State University, Ashford has taught high school biology, physical science and earth science in the Detroit Public Schools. She has also worked as a curriculum developer and administrator of the Detroit Academy of Environmental Science, an instructor in Wayne State University’s Advanced Studies Program. She helped develop the curriculum for the Detroit Science Center Supper Summer Science Camp and the high school curriculum for the Detroit Area Precollege Engineering Program (DAPCEP), an engineering preparatory program with close ties to Michigan Tech.

“I’m honored and excited,” Ashford said when she learned of the appointment. ”I’ve worked with Michigan Tech for so long that I sometimes call our partnership ‘Tech Squared’—for Michigan Tech and Cass Tech,” she remarked.

Ashford is looking forward to sharing her pre-college educational perspective with the Board. “We have a responsibility to prepare students to do well in college, as well as to assist them in making a smooth transition to obtain the best possible college education,” she explained.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.