Johnnetta B. Cole, Ph.D.

1996 Honoree

Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole is Spelman College's dynamic president. When chosen in 1987, she became its seventh president and first black American woman to hold this position.

Spelman, a historically black college for women, is located in Atlanta, Georgia and was founded in 1881. Under Dr. Cole's leadership, innovative programs were developed to improve the quality of teaching and learning and to form linkages with the local community and the world. Recently, a national magazine praised Spelman and called it the number one regional, liberal arts college in the South.

Dr. Cole was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Although she attended segregated schools where facilities were inadequate, the teachers were outstanding. If there were any deficits in her schooling, they were repaired by her parents, both college graduates, and her maternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, founder of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville.

At 15, Johnnetta Cole enrolled in Fisk University in Tennessee but later transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio. She had planned to become a physician, but at Oberlin, anthropology captured her imagination. Anthropology is the science that studies human kind, its origins, social habits, culture, etc. After Oberlin, Dr. Cole earned her master's and doctorate in anthropology at Northwestern University in Evonston, Illinois.

Her first teaching assignment was at Washington State University where she was an assistant professor in the anthropology department and director of the black studies program. She then held professorships at the University of Massachusetts, Hunter College in New York City and City University of New York. Professor Cole earned national recognition as an outstanding scholar and administrator.

At Spelman, she is loved and respected, and students often refer to her as "Sister President," and they know that they are her adopted daughters. When responding to their questions about the future, she often responds this way: "My young sisters and brothers while I acknowledge the bitter pain that racism, sexism and poverty can cause in our lives. I also want to affirm your power to succeed in spite of those obstacles."