Nancy Humbles resides in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She has devoted her life to and career to the education of students as well as her community. She began her career as an instructor at the Marion Learning Center. She worked with high school students that had dropped out of school. She assisted them in completing their GED or returned backed to their home school. After leaving the Marion Center, she worked at the Jane Boyd Community House as the Activity Director. This community house served over a thousand children and provided educational and athletic activities.

Nancy joined the UI in 1990 as an academic planning counselor in Special Support Services and then as an advisor in the UI Henry B. Tippie College of Business. As the Assistant Director of advising at Tippie, she developed the Student Incentive Program, a summer program for minority and first-generation students. She also served as multicultural affairs coordinator and interim program coordinator for Opportunity at Iowa.

In 2007, Humbles became the director of the UI Center for Diversity and Enrichment. In this role, she coordinated outreach opportunities and resources for underserved students from diverse backgrounds, including students of color, first-generation college students, and students from low-income families.

As the founding creator and retired director of the UI Center for Diversity and Enrichment, Nancy was instrumental in establishing programs that provide a welcoming climate for students, faculty, and staff from marginalized communities. She also fostered meaningful personal connections with students who were navigating the ins and outs of college for the first time. She helped them succeed, and she took many of them under her wing, without fanfare, to help them maximize their personal potential and keep moving forward each day. Such guidance came naturally to Nancy, who earned a master’s degree in student development in postsecondary education from the UI College of Education while working at Iowa.

Since retiring from the UI in 2014, Humbles has widened her reach as a community volunteer. She was elected as the first African American to serve on the Cedar Rapids Community School District Board of Education in 2009 and was re-elected in 2013 and 2017. Currently, she is the President of the Cedar Rapids Community School Board of Education and President of the African American Museum of Iowa. Through her steady guidance and unwavering belief in personal potential, Nancy has impacted many people in the Cedar Rapids community.