JACKSON — Jackson State University has hired Vivian Fuller as its first female athletic director.

University President Carolyn Meyers introduced Fuller at a news conference Wednesday.

The 56-year-old Fuller replaces Bob Braddy.

The Clarion-Ledger reports Fuller’s salary was not immediately available. Braddy had made $100,000.

The daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper, Fuller has spent eight years at Sojourner-Douglass College, where she is dean of the Cambridge, Md., campus.

She also has been an athletic director at University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Tennessee State University and Northeastern Illinois University.

A pioneer in promoting women’s sports, she served as a member of the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force.