PEOPLE

Janie L. Jeffers, executive deputy director of the Federal D.C. Interagency Task Force, was appointed by President Clinton as a commissioner of the five-member U.S. Parole Commission, which has sole authority to grant, modify or revoke paroles of eligible prisoners. Jeffers also served as policy advisor for the president's Crime Prevention Council.

Kay Coles James, senior fellow for The Citizen Project at The Heritage Foundation, was elected to the board of directors for the Virginia Beach, VA-based Amerigroup Corporation. The private organization provides health-care coverage to low-income families in six states. James has served as secretary of health and human resources for Virginia.

Brenda C. Siler, director of communications for the Council of Competitiveness, a D.C. public policy think tank, was named director of public relations for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), which represents more than 97,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists and scientists, based in Rockville, MD. In her new capacity, Siler will lead a team responsible for national media relations.

Dr. Barbara R. Hatton, former deputy director of the Education and Culture Program at the Ford Foundation, was officially installed as president of Knoxville College in Tennessee. Hatton joined Knoxville in 1997 and restructured the school as a Work College, which guarantees debt-free education for all students in return for community service. Knoxville is the nation's only historically Black educational institution that is a Work College.

Azira Hill, a long-time board member and patron of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), was honored by the Symphony, which named a talent development scholarship fund supporting aspiring young musicians in her honor. The wife of Atlanta businessman Jesse Hill Jr., she also serves with the Atlanta Symphony Associates, a volunteer group that brings financial, community and educational support to the ASO.