Newt for president? Newt Gingrich, the Republican former Speaker of the House, didn’t rule it out last night in Ashland, before he was to address a packed house of 650-plus at Randolph-Macon College. Gingrich and his wife, Callista, “will look seriously and we’ll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January 2011, and we’ll look seriously at whether or not we think it’s necessary to do it,“ he told reporters during a sit-down interview before last night’s speech.

Newt for president? Newt Gingrich, the Republican former Speaker of the House, didn’t rule it out last night in Ashland, before he was to address a packed house of 650-plus at Randolph-Macon College. Gingrich and his wife, Callista, “will look seriously and we’ll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January, 2011, and we’ll look seriously at whether or not we think it’s necessary to do it,“ he told reporters during a sit-down interview before last night’s speech.

A university president known for his quick rise through the academic ranks will become the next president of Virginia Commonwealth University.

NORFOLK After Barack Obama takes the oath of office Tuesday, he’ll ride to the White House in a new custom-built Cadillac limousine that, other than larger windows, isn’t dramatically different from the presidential limo built for President George W. Bush in 2005. But that doesn’t mean the car isn’t unique. The specifications and construction of presidential cars are overseen by a small government group that has run the program for years.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s presidential search committee will interview an undisclosed number of candidates at an undisclosed location over the next 15 days. Three members of the VCU board of visitors met briefly Thursday to announce that the interview process will begin. But Rector Thomas Rosenthal said he could not discuss the number of candidates or their backgrounds.

Hampden-Sydney College has selected Christopher B. Howard as its new president—the first African-American to lead the all-male college near Farmville.

Virginia Union has become the third area university in search of a new president with Belinda Childress Anderson’s announcement that she’ll step down June 30. Anderson told faculty members Tuesday the date that she will leave the job she has held for five years, and she reiterated that it was her decision to move on. “This is her decision, and she wanted the faculty to know that,“ said Lucille Brown, a member of VUU’s board of trustees who attended the faculty meeting. Anderson announced Nov. 25 that she would resign to make way for new leadership, but did not say when.

In a move she described as being in the university’s best interest, Belinda Childress Anderson said yesterday that she will resign as president of Virginia Union University. Anderson said in a statement that she wants “to make way for the university to secure new leadership positioned to meet new challenges.“ Anderson said she had notified Frank Royal, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, of her decision.

“Because of what we did on this date, in this election, at this defining moment change has come to America,“ President-elect Barack Obama said in his victory speech. As an African-American mother of three children, I’ve been sporadically crying ever since election night. When I tell my children they can work hard and aspire to any job in this country, that statement is finally, finally true.