In Memoriam

A dedicated administrator, faculty member, and colleague, Dr. Smith’s 22-year career at the university included stints serving as interim dean of the College of Business from 2021 to 2022; associate dean of administration and faculty from 2019 to 2023; and associate dean for graduate studies from 2016 to 2019.

André D. Green was the assistant dean of students, director of activities and new student orientation, and director of the Efferson Student Union, at Florida A&M University. He had served on the staff at the university since 2006.

André D. Green was the assistant dean of students, director of activities and new student orientation, and director of the Efferson Student Union, at Florida A&M University. He had served on the staff at the university since 2006.

A native of Kenya, Dr. Mugo fled her native land to political turmoil and taught at St. Lawrence University. After returning to Africa to teach in Zambia and Zimbabwe, in 1992 she was named a visiting professor at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. A year later, she joined the department of African American studies at Syracuse University where she served for 22 years.

In July 1969, Fierce became the first director of the  Urban Center for Black Studies at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The center with offices in downtown Poughkeepsie, two miles from the pristine campus of the liberal arts college, had a community focus.

After serving on the faculty at Fisk University in Nashville, in 1956 Dr. Granville was hired by IBM Corporation and was assigned to work on a contract for NASA. Dr. Granville wrote programs to track orbital trajectories and calculations to ensure the safe re-entry of space vehicles into the atmosphere. She later taught at California State University and the University of Texas at Tyler.

In 2021, Thomas was awarded the prestigious  Higher Educator of the Year Award from the National Education Association for championing faculty and student rights. He also received the James Davenport Memorial Award from the National Council for Higher Education. He was the first African American to win both of these prestigious awards.

Charles Blockson traveled the world and amassed a huge collection of more than 700,000 books, papers, photographs, newspaper articles, journals, sheet music, posters, artifacts, and memorabilia. His collection, now housed at Temple University in Philadelphia, spans from 1581 to the present day.

Williams Spriggs began his academic career teaching at North Carolina A&T State University and then at Norfolk State University in Virginia. In 2005, Dr. Spriggs joined the faculty at Howard University, where he chaired the economics department until 2009. He then served as assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Obama administration. He returned to Howard and was named chief economist at the AFL-CIO in 2012.