B. Cole Biography

Johnnetta Betsch enrolled in Fisk University's early admissions program when she was 15 years old. She earned her bachelor's degree at Oberlin College and went on to Northwestern University for her master's and a doctorate in anthropology. Her first teaching job was at Washington State University, where she received the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year award. She was appointed Professor of Anthropology and Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. She was Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education at the same school for two years. She became a Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Hunter College in 1984. She was able to keep these jobs while still teaching at the City University of New York's graduate school. She made history when she became the first African-American woman to lead Spelman College in 1987. Bill Cosby and his wife Camille donated a $20 million contribution to Spelman Institution upon her inauguration as the seventh President, the highest single gift from individuals to any historically Black college or university. Spelman's freshman classes have had among the best SAT averages of any historically Black college or university since Dr. Cole entered office. In its annual poll of Best College Buys, U.S. News & World Report granted Spelman a coveted number one ranking in 1992. Spelman was named the best regional liberal arts college in the South in the same edition. Johnnetta Cole was assigned Cluster Coordinator for Education, Labor, and the Arts and Humanities to President-Elect Bill Clinton's transition team in the same year. In this delicate position, she became a target for the new administration's critics. Spelman was named the number one historically Black institution, the number one women's college, and the number seven college overall in the United States by Money magazine in 1996. The college concluded a capital campaign that garnered $113.8 million, the most ever raised by a historically Black college or university, under Dr. Cole's leadership. Dr. Cole has served on the boards of directors of Home Depot, Merck & Co., Inc., NationsBank South, and Coca-Cola Enterprises. She was the first woman ever elected to the board of Coca-Cola Enterprises. Dr. Cole will return to teaching in the fall of 1998 as Presidential Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Women's Studies, and African-American Studies at Emory University, after 10 years as President of Spelman College. Johnnetta Cole is the author of two textbooks that are used in classrooms around the country. Conversations, her most recent work, was released in 1993. Arthur J. Robinson, Jr. is her husband. Atlanta, Georgia is where they call home.

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