My Shipley education began in 7th grade when I enrolled in the Middle School in the fall of 1964, one year after the March on Washington, sit-ins across the South, the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. My experience seemed framed by a convergence of events and societal changes. I was of a generation that followed the guidance of parents and I did not question attending Shipley. There must have been broader discussions, as author Andrea Lee also attended Baldwin, and we carpooled together for years from Yeadon. We came from a proud community of educated, middle-class African Americans who pushed for equal rights and access in their own ways. At school, we represented something much larger than ourselves.

I was athletic, fitting well into Shipley’s sports culture and excelling in field hockey and lacrosse. I loved reading and fondly remember sitting in study hall reading Jane Eyre, Jane Austen, and Dickens. My passion for English literature ultimately led me to focus my career on being an Americanist specializing in African American literature, especially Black women writers. Shipley taught me academic discipline, “get your homework done and sit for hours finishing it.” I was again a pioneer, being in Shipley's second class of women—a challenging but formative experience. Shipley valued women, and when the Black students formed a union, there were no impediments. I graduated in 1970 with confidence in both my physical and intellectual self and matriculated at Princeton University. I was invisible to the University as a Black woman undergraduate.

The best part of Princeton was the emphasis on independent research. By my senior year, I had discovered the pantheon of African American literature, housed in the African-American Studies Reading Room of the Firestone Library, where I spent hours reading everything! My thesis was titled "The Black Novel 1920-1930." I made an important discovery that began my career as a scholar that the materials that analyzed and put in context Black literature were using critical paradigms that did not illuminate the literature, especially that of the Black women writers.

I went on to earn an MA in African American Studies from Boston University. This was an interdisciplinary program that exposed us to Boston’s Black history, (always learn the history of your community) art, African literature, sociology, psychology, and community service. I spent a summer in South Carolina at Penn Community Center on St. Helena Island, one of the oldest Gullah communities. I then attended Brown University, where I earned an MA and PhD in American Civilization, specializing in 20th century American novels, African American literature, 18th century Slavery in the New World, and the intersections of Black, White, and Indigenous cultures in the American South. My dissertation in 1983 was on Toni Morrison. 

I have pursued a life of the mind and enjoy the rewards of turning on that passion in students. I have taught at both private and public universities, mostly in urban areas in Chicagoland and the South. My move to the South began another chapter, as I became a dean at Dillard University in New Orleans, LA, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), where I found my calling to support and uplift Black students. Later, I served as dean at Texas Southern University in Houston, TX, and Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA. I continued publishing and presenting scholarly work, and four years ago, I returned to the classroom as a professor of African American Studies, guiding graduate students through their theses and dissertations.

Two years ago, my journey took a new direction when I became the interim director of the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum (CAUAM) during a leadership crisis. In 2023, I was appointed Director of CAUAM. No, I am not an art historian or curator, but the director must know how to manage an organization and I have 15 years of experience, I can make things happen. So I am a museum director still teaching–once a teacher, always a teacher. We are developing museum professionals as we professionalize the museum's operations. We are the stewards of a collection of over 1,200 works, the core of which are the Atlanta Art Annuals. We curate exhibitions from the collection and are sought out by other museums developing exhibitions and scholars. We currently have four works in the Brooklyn Museum's Elizabeth Catlett exhibition "A Black Revolutionary," and had five pieces in the Met's "Harlem Renaissance" exhibition that attracted 500,000 visitors.

The art world is complex and the needs of our museum are great. My ultimate goal is to stabilize it, both financially and operationally, so we can continue to share the artistry of the African diaspora with all. So never stop growing and enjoy the ride.