Dear Department Chair: Letters from Black Women Leaders to the Next Generation

About April C. E. LangleyCarol E. HendersonEunice Myles JeffriesJohnnetta Betsch ColeJulia S. Jordan-ZacherySandra Jowers-BarberTiffany Gilbert

Stephanie Y. Evans PhD is Full Professor in the Institute for Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies and affiliate faculty of the Department of Africana Studies at Georgia State University. She served twelve consecutive years as department chair from 201022. Her research and previously published works focus on Black women's intellectual history memoirs and mental health. She is the founder and co-chair of the Chair at the Table peer mentoring research collective. She lives in Atlanta Georgia. Stephanie G. Adams PhD is Dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas and served as President of the American Society for Engineering Education in 201920. Her research in broadening participation team effectiveness and quality control have been funded by the National Science Foundation for almost two decades and has been published widely in related scholarly journals. She lives in Plano Texas.Stephanie Shonekan PhD is Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland College Park. Her research and publications investigate race identity African American music and movements of resistance. She was a founding co-director of the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race Citizenship and Justice at the University of Missouri Columbia. She lives in College Park Maryland.Johnnetta Betsch Cole PhD became Spelman College's seventh president in 1987 and the first Black woman to lead this college founded specifically for the education of women of African descent. Later after serving as president of Bennett College in North Carolina from 20027 she retired and continued to serve as chair of the Johnnetta Betsch Cole Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute in Atlanta. She has been the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art since 2009.