AUPresses inaugurates its first African American president

Stephanie Williams, Director of the Wayne State University Press in Detroit, Michigan, took over as the new AUpresses' president at the 2026 AUPresses Annual Meeting, which wrapped up on June 15 in Seattle.

By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief

T
he Association of University Presses (AUPresses) has announced that Stephanie Williams, Director of Wayne State University Press in Detroit, Michigan, has made history as the first African American to be inaugurated as the association's president, and only the second woman of color elected to the role dating back to 1938. ( Seetha Srinivasan , then Director of the University Press of Mississippi, was elected to serve as president in 2003).

Williams began her presidency at the 2026 AUPresses Annual Meeting, which wrapped up on June 15 in Seattle, Washington. She succeeds Dennis Lloyd, director of the University of Wisconsin Press. A 30-year publishing veteran, including a stint as Director of the Ohio University Press, Williams took the helm at Wayne State in 2020.

In her inaugural message, Williams spoke about the challenges facing publishers of scholarly books-and in the world at large.

"We live in a time of economic shifts, changing reading and research habits, relentless technological advances and distraction, and, in the U.S. and many other places, a sharp and alarming political divide alongside threats to the democracy and civil rights that we had come to believe were worth past sacrifices," Williams said. "Now is a good time to remember how to be agile, resilient, and versatile, and to share those skills across the lines of work."

Williams also spoke to the importance of diversity in the industry.

"As an international organization, the demographic diversity among staffs, who shape not only the books but also what audiences they reach and how they reach them, has historically been and is now a near-monoculture," she observed. "Addressing intractable systems of exclusion and oppression that are historic and multifarious is not something we can do in a few years of intermittent focus. We should always look critically at ourselves and our peers, and address the many ways we marginalize, minimize, and discourage staff from minoritized groups from remaining in this work long enough to effect change. We should always seek to learn from others and create enough safety for people to thrive, to make mistakes, to inhabit this occupation."

Williams said her priority over the next year as President to help AUPresses and its members presses "go forth with confidence, secure in the fulfillment of our essential mission-to advance knowledge and to diffuse it far and wide."

As Publishing Perspectives reported in May, AUPresses reported another year of growth in 2026.