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Ivory Vance Nelson was born in Curtiss, Louisiana, on June 11, 1934. He attended public primary and secondary schools in Mississippi and Louisiana. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Shreveport, LA, in 1951 at the age of sixteen. A year after graduating high school, he enlisted in the United States Air Force, serving as a crypto-annalist. In 1955, he entered Grambling State University and four years later graduated with a bachelor's degree in secondary education with a focus in chemistry. He attended the University of Kansas in the fall of 1959, where he received his doctorate in analytical chemistry in 1963. Later that same year, he was hired by Southern University as an Associate Professor of Chemistry, and in 1966 became the college's Head of the Division of Sciences. In 1968, Dr. Nelson became Assistant Academic Dean at Prairie View A&M University. Four years later he was promoted to Vice President of Research and served as Acting President of the school from 1982 to 1983. He was appointed Executive Assistant to the Texas A&M University System in fall of 1983, and in 1986 became Chancellor of the Alamo Community College District in San Antonio. Dr. Nelson was selected as President of Central Washington University in early 1992. In the fall of 1998, the faculty senators at Central Washington University voted to sponsor a no confidence vote. President Nelson lost the vote by a margin of 63%. Dr. Nelson announced his retirement in February of 1999. On August 15, 1999, he was appointed president of Lincoln University.