CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
THE CuRIOUS CASE oF BLaCK WOMeN IN HBCU PR e SIDENTI a L LE a DERSHIP
BY DR. CRYSTAL deGREGORY WITH DR. ELIZABETH C. STEWART
T he presence, purposefulness, and power of Black women in historically Black college and university (HBCU) culture cannot be denied. Black women make up the largest percentage of HBCU enrollees and graduates. They serve as faculty across various disciplines and often make up a majority of the staff. In these roles, in various offices across campus, academic departments, the registrar’s office, food service, student life, and library services, Black women not only nurture students but also shape much of their HBCU experience. And let us not forget, they also hold the vast majority of administrative assistant posts, where they wield incredible influence over access and the prioritizing of communication on campus and beyond. While the consistent and increased presence of Black women serving HBCU campuses may seemingly
indicate progress, it does not diminish the longstanding gender disparity in the occupation of the highest HBCU office, the presidency, by Black women throughout generations. Despite the much-lauded successes of Black women college presidents like Bethune-Cookman University founder Mary McLeod Bethune and Willa Player of Bennett College, the golden era of HBCUs is often attributed to the educational leadership of Black men, from Booker T. Washington to Benjamin Elijah Mays. And even with the popularity of contemporary, influential figures like Johnnetta B. Cole, distinguished president emerita of both Spelman College and Bennett College, the success of Black women HBCU presidents has largely been hit or miss. A virtual unknown on the HBCU landscape of popular figures, Adena Williams Loston, an alumna of Alcorn State University, holds the longest-
running presidency among Black women HBCU presidents. Since 2007, she has served as the fourteenth president of St. Philip's College in San Antonio, the only historically Black college and Hispanic-serving institution in the United States. It’s a true credit to Loston that her stellar presidential leadership exceeds 15 years and rolls on. Joining her, since the 2010s, are other Black women HBCU presidents who have maintained their tenures. They include Glenda Baskin Glover at Tennessee State University, Valerie Montgomery Rice at Morehouse School of Medicine, Karrie Gibson Dixon at Elizabeth City State University, Bobbie Knight at Miles College, Heidi M. Anderson at University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Javaune Adams-Gaston at Norfolk State University, Marion Ross Fedrick at Albany State University, and Roslyn Clark Artis, formerly at Florida Memorial University and now at
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