The 2010 Rachel B. Noel Professorship Community Event

The Rachel B. Noel Distinguished Visiting Professorship was initiated in 1981 to foster multiculturalism, diversity and academic excellence at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The professorship brings renowned scholars and artists of distinction to Metro State to conduct classes, seminars, performances and lectures for students, faculty and the larger Denver community.

This year's professor is Julius Coles. Coles has spent over four decades engaged in international work in Africa, and for most of his adult life has worked for the benefit of many African countries.

Coles served as president of Africare, a nonprofit that provides development assistance in Africa, from 2002 through his retirement in December 2009. Coles was the third president of the oldest African-American-led organization working exclusively on development assistance to Africa since 1970. Under Coles’ leadership, Africare doubled its financial resources and updated its management practices and systems. Africare Board Chairman W. Frank Fountain said of Coles’ Africare presidency: “Millions of people across Africa are better off today than they when Julius came on board. His contribution to Africare will be remembered as one of the most successful in the organization’s history.”

Most of Coles' early career, spanning some 28 years, was as a senior official with the United States Agency for International Development. He was mission director in Swaziland and Senegal and served in Vietnam, Morocco, Liberia, Nepal and Washington, D.C. Coles retired from the U.S. government's foreign service in 1994 with the rank of career minister.

Coles served as the director of Howard University’s Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 2002, he was the director of Morehouse College’s Andrew Young Center for International Affairs.

A graduate of Morehouse College, Coles also earned a master’s of public affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The recipient of several prestigious awards including the James Madison Medal from Princeton University and the Morehouse College National Alumnus of the Year, Coles has also served on the board of numerous well-known organizations including the National Academy of Public Administration, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the UNESCO International Commission on the Gorée Memorial (Senegal). He was appointed to the board of the African Development Foundation by former President George W. Bush.