A&T Names Interim Deans for Agriculture and Business Colleges

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (July 24, 2025) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has named two dynamic leaders in their respective fields to serve as interim deans of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) and Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics, campus leaders announced today.

Research immunologist Radiah Corn Minor, Ph.D., will lead CAES while accountancy scholar Kecia Williams Smith ’95, CPA, Ph.D., will lead the Deese College.

Minor assumed leadership of the nation’s No. 1 producer of Black agricultural science grads on July 1. In addition to being home to one of North Carolina’s two Cooperative Extension programs, CAES is one of N.C. A&T’s most research-intensive colleges, with a $45 million extramural research portfolio, and the largest agriculture school at any of America’s historically Black colleges or universities.

Since 2022, Minor has served as chair of the college’s Department of Animal Sciences. During her tenure, department faculty received $8.8 million in grants and established more than 37 cross-disciplinary collaborations. An outstanding classroom teacher as well as an accomplished researcher, Minor was honored by the UNC System Board of Governors in 2018 with its Excellence in Teaching Award.

Minor has held a faculty appointment in animal sciences since 2008. She has served as principal or co-principal investigator for 19 funded grants totaling $6 million and been an advisor to more than 50 undergraduate students each year. Her research interests focus on the use of medicinal plants that promote positive immune responses and support the overall health of mammals.

Minor earned a B.S. in biology from Florida A&M University and a Ph.D. from Meharry Medical College, concentrating on biomedical sciences and immunology. She served as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Meharry Medical College.

In addition to her Excellence in Teaching Award, Minor earned the 2018 Outstanding College Teaching Award from the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

Smith, whose appointment began July 23, is director of the Deese College’s Master of Accountancy (MACC) program and the Center for Accounting Opportunities, as well an associate professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance. She is a licensed CPA in North Carolina and Georgia and was appointed last year to serve a three-year term on the N.C. State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners.

Before joining her alma mater to lead the MACC program at its inception in 2019, she was an assistant professor of accounting and information systems at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. She also worked as a senior manager at Deloitte and held a regulatory role at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

With 25 years of experience driving strategic results in public accounting, audit regulation, and academia, Smith is a skilled advisor to business organizations, not-for-profit entities, and regulators on regulatory compliance, corporate governance, change and transformation and inclusivity. She provides strategic guidance through her roles on the North Carolina State Board of CPA Examiners, Deloitte’s Audit Quality Advisory Council and the PCAOB Standards and Emerging Issues Advisory Group.

Smith previously served on the Government Accountability Office’s Accountability Advisory Council. She brings deep corporate governance experience through work with advisory boards and regulatory bodies.

Smith’s scope of research includes audit quality, regulatory oversight, auditor judgment and the advancement of diversity in the accounting profession. Her work appears in scholarly journals such Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Auditing: The Journal of Practice and Theory, Accounting Horizons, Issues in Accounting Education, and Current Issues in Auditing.

Smith is an active member of several professional organizations including the American Institute of CPAs, the North Carolina Association of CPAs, the American Accounting Association and NABA, Inc.  In 2022, Smith was recognized as one of AICPA/CPA Practice Advisor’s 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting.

Smith received her B.S. in accounting summa cum laude from A&T before earning her Ph.D. in accounting from Texas A&M University. She holds a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business’ Office of Corporate Training and Professional Education.