Gregory Kimbrell, assistant director of communications and public relations for VCU Libraries, has been elected as the next president of the VCU Staff Senate, which represents and advocates on behalf of VCU’s more than 3,600 staff members

Kimbrell’s term as president of the Staff Senate will begin August 2021 and end July 2022.  

Founded in 1991, the Staff Senate includes members from across VCU. It provides staff representatives for university committees and other important positions across VCU. It organizes and hosts an annual career development conference in partnership with VCU Human Resources, sponsors the annual VCU Staff Senate Awards of Excellence, which recognize VCU and VCU Health staff members for professional integrity, diversity and inclusion, career achievement, exceptional customer service, and it organizes an annual Employee Appreciation Celebration, providing discounts at VCU and in the community for VCU and VCU Health employees.

As president, Kimbrell will lead a Staff Senate that is larger and elected by staff peers, as the Staff Senate will hold university-wide elections this summer for the first time in many years.

Kimbrell joined VCU in 2010. At VCU Libraries, he coordinates an extensive event lineup and manages the event spaces in Cabell Library.

He is also an active poet, specializing in fantastical and surreal poetry that blends genres such as science fiction, horror and period drama. His second book, The Ceremonial Armor of the Impostor, was published by Weasel Press in 2019. His first book, The Primitive Observatory, was awarded the 2014 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2016. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Across the Margin, Alcyone, Coffin Bell, The Dark Sire, Deluge, Door is a Jar, The Operating System and elsewhere.