Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee announced Thursday that Valerie Lee, vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion and chief diversity officer, has been named to the additional role of Vice President for Outreach and Engagement.

Lee, who received her Ph.D. in English from OSU, has been a member of the university faculty since 1991. In her role as vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Lee’s responsibilities have included the management of educational pathways and outreach programs for nine Ohio urban districts; the promotion of recruitment and retention of underrepresented, first-generation and low-income students; oversight of the Todd A. Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male and the Frank W. Hale, Jr., Black Cultural Center, and the coordination of national conferences and community projects.

The two offices will now be combined under Lee’s leadership, which will “leverage her broad academic experience to expand the reach of our faculty’s expertise more thoroughly into the community,” according to a press release. Until earlier this year, Joyce Beatty, who has now become a candidate to represent Ohio’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, led the Office of Outreach and Engagement.