Dr. Mimi M. Elrod

Mimi Milner Elrod serves as the mayor of Lexington, Virginia. She is the former director of the Summer Scholars Program, a well-established program at Washington & Lee for college-bound high school students who had completed the junior year. She previously worked with the admissions office at Washington and Lee.

Before joining W&L, Elrod was an assistant professor at Iowa State University (1978-1984) where she taught, conducted research, and worked through a grant to provide training and technical assistance to Head Start. She has published numerous research papers and articles and has been active in various professional associations. In the late 1960s she worked in the New York public school system, teaching in central Harlem. She holds a B.S. in political science and history from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Ga., and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in child development from Iowa State University.

An educator, civil rights activist, and mental health advocate, she has been a leader in domestic violence prevention, mental health, and other community organizations. She served as a volunteer on the hot line for Project Horizon and served as president of the Project Horizon board for four terms. She has served as chair of the Rockbridge Area Community Services Board and the Mental Health Association and has been a board member of the Association for Retarded Citizens and Yellow Brick Road Child Care Center. At Washington and Lee, she serves on the Shepherd Poverty Alliance Alumni Committee and was an advisor to Women in Technology & Science and Chi Omega. She is a member of the Rockbridge Are Free Clinci, an elder at the Lexington Presbyterian Church, and was part of a medical mission trip to Haiti in 1999.

While her husband was president of W&L, Elrod nurtured and encouraged thousands of students, regularly hosting groups of students for dinner in her home. For all her work with students and her leadership in the Lexington and Rockbridge community, Washington and Lee awarded her an honorary degree in June of 2002.