Beverly Daniel Tatum, who served as president of Spelman College in Atlanta from 2002 to 2015, has been selected to receive the Arthur A. Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity. Dr. Tatum will be honored at the association’s annual conference in Atlanta.
The Arthur A. Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award is named for the former Assistant Secretary of Labor during the Nixon administration who championed the Philadelphia Plan, promoting equal opportunity and affirmative action programs for federal contractors. The Fletcher Award recognizes a lifetime of achievement advancing and advocating for affirmative action as a means of attaining equal employment opportunity and diversity.
Before becoming president of Spelman College in 2002, Dr. Tatum was a professor of psychology and dean of the college at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Earlier in her career, she taught at Westfield State College in Massachusetts and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
President Tatum is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She earned a master’s degree at the Hartford Seminary. Dr Tatum earned a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Tatum is the author of the best-selling book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race.
