Dr. Wright Lassiter
For immediate release — December 2010
(DALLAS) — In addition to his dedication as an educator and mentor, Dr. Wright Lassiter Jr. is known in Dallas circles and beyond for his service to the community and his Christian leadership. Lassiter, chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District, recently was honored by Dallas Baptist University with the 2010 Russell H. Perry Free Enterprise Award. The Dallas leader’s decades of service to students, community and higher education reflect the nature of DBU’s Perry Award, which recognizes individuals for their dedication to free enterprise and to the community.
Both a proud DBU faculty member and the chairman of its board of trustees, Lassiter has taught business ethics and leadership classes at the university as a distinguished professor of management and leadership for more than 20 years. He served as president of El Centro College in Dallas for 20 years before he became DCCCD’s chancellor in 2006. Previously, he was president of Bishop College. He also was the first African-American to serve as president of Schenectady County Community College in New York, chairman of the board of commissioners for the Tuskegee (Ala.) Housing Authority and chancellor of DCCCD.
Lassiter, a teaching pastor at Concord Baptist Church, oversees DCCCD’s seven colleges located throughout Dallas County; more than 80,000 credit and 25,000 continuing education students are enrolled in the system, making DCCCD the largest undergraduate institution in Texas.
DBU’s Russell H. Perry Free Enterprise Award was established in 1988 and is presented annually during a gala dinner. The event is named in memory of Dallas business leader and philanthropist Russell H. Perry and has raised more than $3.3 million in scholarship funds for almost 1,450 DBU students.