Breana M. Ware is the inaugural general counsel for Spelman College, a women’s liberal arts educational institution in Atlanta. Before her new role, she was a vice president and counsel for a national development and construction firm. Earlier in her career, she spent nearly six years on the legal affairs attorney team at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
Ware is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, where she majored in English literature. She holds a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.
Dianne Pledger was named director of the Diggs Art Gallery at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. Her background includes over three decades of leadership experience in arts management, fundraising, and cultural programming. She is the principal consultant of Pledger Consulting, a firm she founded that specializes in nonprofit administration, strategic planning, grant writing, board development, and organizational capacity building.
Pledger is an alumna of North Carolina Central University.
Shontel Grumhaus has been appointed senior vice president for development and external affairs at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She comes to her new role from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has been serving as senior associate vice chancellor for development and chief strategist for schools and units. Earlier, she was senior associate dean for advancement at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Grumhaus earned both her bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


