Dr. Darren J. Hamilton has provided service leadership as a 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program Administrator since June 2021.  Dr. Hamilton supports the Southwestern Region of North Carolina.  He brings tremendous energy and enthusiasm with a “can do and will do” attitude to the SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI).

Prior to Dr. Hamilton’s role as 21st CCLC Program Administrator, he worked as Curriculum Specialist and Program Director for 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) afterschool programs at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.  During that time, he has written, obtained, and managed grants of $21 million over a ten-year span.

Beyond this, Dr. Hamilton has extensive experience in the educational field having worked as an Assistant Professor, Athletics Director, Journal Editor for the Pennsylvania Black Conference on Higher Education, Education Policy Advisor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Governor, and Consultant for AME Zion University (Monrovia, Liberia). Through his experiences, Dr. Hamilton continually works towards providing educational and enrichment activities for all students to grow and develop all over the world.

Throughout the course of his career, Darren has worked to develop expertise in grant writing, curriculum development, project-based learning, and S.T.E.M. In 2018, Dr. Hamilton facilitated a S.T.E.M. workshop at the Synergy Conference. Most recently, Dr. Darren J. Hamilton was named to the Advisory Board for North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs (NCCAP) and received the 2021 Lifetime Afterschool Champion from NCCAP. He continues to develop exciting cutting-edge programs, enrichment activities, and curriculum for all students to close achievement gaps.

Dr. Hamilton is a former student-athlete who played on the first national championship team  and earned the Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy from The Pennsylvania State University.  Additionally, Darren is the first recipient of the Ph.D. in Black History from Penn State.

In Darren’s spare time he is an avid golfer and loves cooking and feeding people.