April
5, 2002
Tatum
Top Candidate for Spelman College Presidency
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Photo: Paul Schnaittacher
Beverly
Daniel Tatum
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It is likely that
Beverly Daniel Tatum will soon no longer be an acting president,
but will become a permanent one. Spelman College, a private, liberal
arts, historically black college for women located in Atlanta,
Georgia, has announced that after considering more than 125 nominees
and interviewing a select number of "highly talented women
in academia," MHC's dean of the College and professor
of psychology and education is its top choice to become Spelman's
ninth president.
Spelman's presidential
search committee brought Tatum to campus April 2, when she met
with faculty, students, staff, and alumnae. According to Yvonne
R. Jackson, c\hair of the search committee, Tatum's "experience
as a scholar, teacher, administrator, author and recognized leader
in higher education commend her especially as a candidate to lead
Spelman in the years ahead. We anticipate that the Spelman community
will enthusiastically agree."
According to a March
28 article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Spelman's
board is expected to vote on the decision April 19, and "decision
makers at Spelman see [Tatum] as the perfect choice to guide the
nation's premiere liberal arts school serving African American
women after Audrey Forbes Manley leaves in June. They said Tatum
brings the needed academic achievement, administrative experience,
fund-raising know-how, and exemplary track record for working
with faculty and students."
Says Tatum, "This
is a very exciting opportunity for me, but it is a bittersweet
moment because I have really loved being at Mount Holyoke. I have
been at MHC longer than anywhere else in my professional career
(thirteen years), and the time I have spent here as a professor
and as an administrator has been a period of tremendous personal
and professional growth. I am very grateful for the opportunities
I have had to work with so many talented students and colleagues.
I know it will be hard to leave so many good friends here, but
Spelman College holds a very special place in higher education,
and the chance to serve as president there is truly a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity that I cannot ignore."
Reached on sabbatical,
President Joanne V. Creighton said, "A gifted teacher and
accomplished scholar, Beverly Daniel Tatum is also a natural-born
administrator. While we shall surely miss her here at Mount Holyoke,
she is an inspired choice for the presidency of Spelman. In her
thirteen years here, Dr. Tatum has exerted a powerful influence
on this institution and worked very effectively to expand our
success as a diverse community. As a teacher, she has inspired
countless students. As a scholar and writer, she has helped shape
the national discussion on issues of race. And, as an administrator,
she has played an important role in maintaining Mount Holyoke's
leadership in the liberal arts. I am grateful for Beverly Tatum's
service as acting president while I am on sabbatical and confident
that Spelman's board will approve her candidacy, just as
I am confident that Dr. Tatum will build on Spelman's proud
traditions with the same clear-sighted energy, courage, and caring
she has brought to Mount Holyoke."
Appointed to the Mount
Holyoke faculty in 1989, Tatum focuses her work on race relations
in America—particularly black families in white America,
racial identity in teens, and race in the classroom. She has toured
extensively, leading workshops on racial identity development
and its impact in the classroom, and has published numerous works
on race and educational issues. She earned a B.A. from Wesleyan
University in psychology and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Prior to joining the
MHC faculty, Tatum was an associate professor and assistant professor
at Westfield State College and a lecturer at the University of
California at Santa Barbara's Department of Black Studies.
For almost twenty
tears, Tatum has taught a class in the psychology of racism. In
1997 her book Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in
the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race exploded
onto the national scene just as President Clinton's Initiative
on Race was developing. In December 1997, she was one of three
authors to appear with Clinton at the Akron national town meeting
on race. She was also a panel member in September for the initiative's
first project, which was held in Little Rock to commemorate the
fortieth anniversary of Central High's desegregation, and
she has appeared in dozens of media outlets around the country.
In 1996, Tatum received a Carnegie Corporation grant for a demonstration
project in the Northampton, Massachusetts, school system. The
two-year program applied her book's idea to a middle school,
and it built upon her past success of working with educators and
students in racially mixed schools. In January of 2002, she assumed
the role of acting president of Mount Holyoke while President
Joanne Creighton takes a semester-long sabbatical. Tatum shares
the responsibilities with the Dean of Faculty Donal O'Shea.
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