Roneagle Spotlight: Dr. Sheryl Kennedy Haydel

Dr. Sheryl Kennedy Haydel, class of 1987, has been named Dillard University’s Director of Communications and Marketing. She brings a unique breadth of experience and education to the position. Kennedy Haydel’s communications career spans 25 years, including working in print journalism, public relations and in higher education.

Kennedy Haydel’s storytelling is rooted in her time as a newspaper reporter, where she began at the Austin American-Statesman (Austin, Texas) in 1992, and matriculated to The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit News, and Detroit Free Press, where she was a business reporter from 1999-2001.

She earned a B.A. in Journalism from Clark Atlanta University and throughout her professional career, has continued her education. Kennedy Haydel was an Inaugural Chips Quinn Scholar, a program that promotes diversity in the newsroom. She also holds degrees from the University of Maryland–College Park (M.A. in Journalism), University of Wisconsin (MBA, with a concentration in Marketing), and the University of Southern Mississippi (Ph.D., in Mass Communication and Journalism.)

Kennedy Haydel has taught at Delgado Community College, Southern University at New Orleans, University of Southern Mississippi, Tulane University and Xavier University of Louisiana, where she was an assistant professor in the Department of Communications from 2008 until 2017.

She is a New Orleans native, with deep ties to Dillard. Her parents (Coach LaBaron Kennedy and Jean C. Kennedy, class of 1960) and sister (Sonia J. Kennedy, class of 1984) are graduates of the University. Kennedy Haydel is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, Public Relations Association of Louisiana, American Journalism Historian Association, the National Association of Black Journalists and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. For 13 years, she has been married to David M. Haydel, McDonogh 35 class of 1988. They have two children together.