In Memoriam: Nathan Howard Cook, 1939-2024
Dr. Cook was a longtime faculty member and administrator at Lincoln University of Missouri. A full professor of biology, he held several leadership roles including vice president for academic affairs.
In Memoriam: Maxine Mimms, 1928-2024
Dr. Mimms served as a faculty member at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington for two decades, including 10 years as the founding director of the college's Tacoma campus.
In Memoriam: Peggy Lynn Davis, 1961-2024
Peggy Davis was in her 27th year with Virginia State University's department of athletics at the time of her passing. Throughout her career, she received several awards for her work in intercollegiate athletics, including the CIAA Athletic Director of the Year on seven separate occasions.
In Memoriam: William E. Pannell, 1929-2024
Pannell was a professor of evangelism and preaching at Fuller Seminary for nearly three-decades. He served as director of the seminary's Black Pastors' Program, which has since been renamed in his honor to the William E. Center for Black Church Studies.
In Memoriam: Glenn Wilbert Valentine, 1955-2024
In the late 1970s, Valentine was named assistant director of admissions at Virginia Tech, making him one of the first Black employees who were alumni of the university. During the first 10 years of his tenure in the university's admissions office, Black student enrollment more than quadrupled.
In Memoriam: Edward Cox, 1943-2024
Dr. Cox was a professor of history at Rice University for nearly three decades. He was a member of Rice's Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice, an advisor for the Black Student Association, and founding director of the Mellon Undergraduate Fellowship program.
In Memoriam: Wendell Harris, 1940-2024
Throughout his career in education, Harris served in a wide variety of settings including K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities. He also spent several years as an administrator with the New York Department of Education.
In Memoriam: Curtis Johnson
As chief of staff and vice president of administration at Tennessee State University, Dr. Johnson oversaw the university's auxiliary services and many departments dedicated to student operations.
In Memoriam: Sybil Haydel Morial, 1932-2024
When pursuing her graduate education in the 1950s, Haydel Morial was denied enrollment at Tulane University and Loyola University because of her race. She went on to become an active member of the civil rights movement and advocate for voting rights in New Orleans and held administrative posts at Xavier University of Louisiana.
In Memoriam: Marilyn Lillith Minus, 1977-2024
Dr. Minus taught mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University for more than a decade. Earlier this year, she stepped away from Northeastern to become senior vice president and CTO for Hexcel.
In Memoriam: Lucious Edwards, Jr., 1943-2024
For nearly four decades, Edwards served as an adjunct professor of history and the university archivist at historically Black Virginia State University.
In Memoriam: Monica Vance, 1975-2024
Vance served as director of student disability services at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for the past six years. In this role, she focused her efforts on DEI initiatives, student accessibility, and disability rights.
In Memoriam: Doris Wilkinson, 1936-2024
Dr. Wilkinson was a member of the University of Kentucky's first African American undergraduate class, graduating with a degree in sociology in 1958. Nine years later, she returned to her alma mater as the university's first Black woman to hold a full-time faculty position.
In Memoriam: Nathan Hare, 1933-2024
Dr. Hare was a prominent figure in the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s and was a strong advocate for equal educational opportunities for Black Americans. In 1968, he founded the country's first Black studies program at San Francisco State University.
In Memoriam: James Morris Lawson Jr., 1928-2024
Lawson enrolled at the Vanderbilt Divinity School in 1958. While he was a student, he helped organize sit-ins at lunch counters in downtown Nashville. In 1960, he was expelled from the university for his participation in civil rights protests.
In Memoriam: Mary Magdaline White, 1967-2024
White, a two-time HBCU graduate, was a member of the South Carolina State University staff for over two decades, most recently serving as dean of students.
In Memoriam: Irving Peddrew III, 1935-2024
Peddrew was the first African American to enroll in Virginia Tech. While he attended the university, the school's administration required Peddrew to live off campus. Fifty years later, the university dedicated a residential hall in his honor.
In Memoriam: Kenneth Campbell
Campbell served as an assistant professor in the department of mass communication at North Carolina Central University. He taught media studies and served as an advisor for the student film organization, Nineteen10 Film Alliance.
In Memoriam: Christopher Fairfield Edley Jr., 1953-2024
Christopher Edley had an extensive career in both academia and public service. He served as a professor with Harvard Law School for 23 years and held senior advising roles for five presidential campaigns, including for his former student, Barack Obama.
In Memoriam: Clayton Bates Jr., 1932-2024
Dr. Bates taught physics and electrical engineering at Stanford University for over two decades. He was the first Black faculty member to earn tenure in Stanford's School of Engineering.
In Memoriam: Roy Hudson, 1930-2024
From 1970 to 1976, Dr. Hudson served as the tenth president of what is now Hampton University in Virginia. He also held an interim appointment as president of his undergraduate alma mater, Livingstone College in North Carolina.
In Memoriam: William Strickland, 1937-2024
Strickland spent his lifetime dedicated to advancing civil rights and Black political representation. For four decades, he served as a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he taught courses on Black history and the civil rights movement.
In Memoriam: William Hamilton Harris, 1944-2024
Dr. Harris had a long career in higher education leadership, serving as interim or permanent president of five historically Black institutions: Paine College, Texas Southern University, Alabama State University, Fort Valley State University, and Texas College.
In Memoriam: June Jackson Christmas, 1924-2023
A longtime clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, Dr. Christmas also taught behavioral science at the City University of New York School of Medicine and was a professor of mental health policy at the Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
In Memoriam: Faith Ringgold, 1930-2024
Ringgold was a mixed media artist, best known for her narrative quilts which centered around African American and women's representation. She was a professor emerita of art with the University of California, San Diego where she taught for 15 years.
In Memoriam: Roscoe Hightower Jr., 1966-2024
Dr. Hightower was a professor of marketing at his alma mater, historically Black Florida A&M University, where he taught for over two decades. He also served the university as the Centennial Eminent Scholar Chair and Professor of Marketing and Facility Management.
In Memoriam: O. Jerome Green, 1954-2024
President of historically Black Shorter College O. Jerome Green passed way unexpectedly on April 8. Since he became president in 2012, the college has experienced record-breaking enrollment and graduation rates, created new academic programs, and established the STEM Center for Academic Excellence.
In Memoriam: Ruth R. Martin, 1930-2024
Dr. Martin was a professor emerita of social work at the University of Connecticut. In addition to teaching, she served the university as associate dean prior to retiring in 1999.
In Memoriam: Bertha Maxwell-Roddey, 1930-2024
In 1970, Dr. Maxwell-Roddey became the second African-American to be hired as a full-time faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. One year later, she became the founding director of the university's Africana studies department.
In Memoriam: Ramona Edelin, 1945-2024
Dr. Edelin founded the first African American studies program at Northeastern University in 1972. She is credited for introducing the term "African American" into American vernacular.
In Memoriam: Lena Prewitt, 1931-2024
In 1970, Dr. Prewitt joined the faculty at the University of Alabama as its first-ever Black woman professor. She served the university as an associate professor of business for over two decades prior to taking on academic and administrative leadership positions with Stillman College.
In Memoriam: Gloria Jackson, 1931-2024
Dr. Gloria Jackson had a career in higher education that spanned five decades. From 1982 to 1984, she served as president of St. Philip's College in Texas, a historically Black community college within the Alamo Colleges District.
In Memoriam: Shani Mott, 1976-2024
Dr. Mott was a lecturer in the department of history and Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University where she worked for the past sixteen years. Her academic studies focused on racial language in American popular culture.
In Memoriam: Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024
Dr. Anderson was the assistant vice president for research and academic affairs at Florida State University at the time of his death. He had an extensive career in clinical psychology, which led him to become the first African American chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association.
In Memoriam: Paul F. Bitting, 1945-2024
In 1989, Dr. Bitting joined the faculty of the College of Education at North Carolina State University where he taught until his retirement in 2016 as an associate professor. From 2006 to 2007, he served as the college's assistant dean for diversity.
In Memoriam: Robert L. Palmer, 1943-2024
Dr. Palmer served as vice president of student affairs at California State University, Fullerton for over a decade, where he oversaw the establishment of numerous student support programs including the African American Resource Center. He also spent over twenty years with the division of student affairs at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
