Winter 2006 (PDF - Spelman College

Spelman Names Building in Honor of ‘Sister Prez’ Johnnetta B. Cole
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magazines including U.S. News & World Report
and Money.
Other highlights of her administration
include the College’s most successful capital
campaign and the establishment of several
major initiatives. The capital campaign exceeded
its original goal of $81 million to raise an
unprecedented $113,885,250, boosting Spelman’s
endowment to $141 million, among the largest
for historically Black colleges and universities.
The major initiatives included the Mentorship
Program and Corporate Women’s Roundtable,
the Sumiko Takahara Japanese Studies program,
the International Affairs Center for the
Atlanta University Center, the Mickey Leland
Scholars Program, the Bonners Scholars Program
for Community Service and the Dow Jones-
Spelman Entrepreneurial Center. Dr. Cole also
presided over the restructuring of curriculum,
academic affairs and faculty governance as well
as an increase in the number of credits required
for graduation.
“It is impossible to overstate the importance
of Johnnetta Cole’s tenure at Spelman College.
As our first Black woman president, she made
our dreams of female leadership and empowerment
a reality,” said acclaimed author/play-
6 I NSIDE S PELMAN
wright Pearl Cleage, a member of the Spelman
Class of 1971, and the current Cosby Chair in
the humanities. “Her work as an activist,
administrator and feminist energized both the
faculty and the student body. Her service, not
only to the campus, but to the city of Atlanta
and nationally, is a model of engaged scholarship
and creative civic involvement.”
After leaving Spelman, Dr. Cole returned to
her first love – teaching – in 1998 as presidential
distinguished professor of anthropology, women’s
studies and African American studies at Emory
University. She retired from that position in 2001.
Artist Amalia Amaki Shakes the Winter Blues
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Amalia Amaki is an artist, art historian,
curator and scholar of American art and culture.
Perhaps best known for mixed media quilts
that celebrate the lives of African American
women blues singers and for button-encrusted
cyanotypes, Dr. Amaki is also recognized for
commissions completed for Atlanta Hartsfield
Airport, Absolut Vodka, and Seagram’s Gin. She
earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from
Georgia State University, a bachelor’s degree in
photography and painting from the University
of New Mexico, and a doctorate from the Graduate
Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University.
Currently she is the scholar-in-residence at Spelman
College, the curator of the Paul R. Jones
Collection and an assistant professor in art, art
history, and Black American studies at the University
of Delaware. Her work is in the permanent
collections at numerous museums
including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,
the National Museum of Women in the Arts
(NMWA) in Washington, D.C., the Museum of
Fine Arts in Houston, the Minnesota Museum of
Art in St. Paul, Emory University and the Spelman
College Museum of Fine Art.
Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the
Blues is generously sponsored by The Coca-Cola
Company. Major support is also provided by the
Fulton County Board of Commissioners under
the guidance of the Fulton County Arts Council.
Additional support is provided by the Massey
Charitable Trust and the LUBO Fund, Inc. Official
media sponsors are The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution and the Atlanta Daily World.
A color catalogue – including scholarly
essays by Dr. Andrea D. Barnwell, director of
Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Dr. Leslie
King-Hammond, dean of graduate studies at
The Maryland Institute College of Art, and Dr.
Gloria Wade-Gayles, the eminent scholar’s chair
in independent study at Spelman College –
accompanies the exhibition. Co-published by
NMWA and Spelman in association with University
of Washington Press, this 136-page book
includes a fully illustrated checklist. The hardcover
edition retails for $35.
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is
the only museum in the nation that focuses on
works by and about women of the African Diaspora.
Since it was established in 1996, the Museum
At the dedication of the
Johnnetta Betch Cole
Living & Learning Center
II, Spelman President
Beverly Daniel Tatum
joined Dr. Johnnetta B.
Cole, president of Bennett
College for Women,
Mr. Robert Holland, Jr.,
former chair of the Spelman
Board of Trustees,
and Ms. Yvonne Jackson,
C’70, chair of the Spelman
Board of Trustees
during the ribbon cutting
ceremony.
In 2002, she received a call to help save the
nation’s other historically Black college for
women, Spelman’s sister school, Bennett College
for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. She
now serves as Bennett’s 14th president.
The Johnnetta Betch Cole Living & Learning
Center II is a $7.8 million multipurpose facility
that features 200 student beds plus three apartments
for visiting lecturers and College guests.
It also houses Spelman’s Continuing Education
program. The architectural firm Nix Mann
Viehman designed the building. ●
has received awards from prestigious organizations
including The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts, the Fulton County Arts Council,
the Institute of Museums and Library Services,
the Museum Loan Network, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Peter Norton
Family Foundation, the Getty Foundation
and the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
It has also received a host of accolades
including the “Best Museum Off Peachtree”
(Creative Loafing December 2004); one of the
city’s “Fabulous Five Museums” by the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution (July 2005); and the “Best
Kept Museum Secrets” (Atlanta Magazine,
December 2005).
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is
open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10:00 am
to 4:00 pm and on Saturdays from 12:00 pm to
4:00 pm. The Museum is closed Sunday, Monday,
holidays and Spelman College breaks. It is
located on the first floor of the Camille Olivia
Hanks Cosby Academic Center. For more information
about the Museum and its programs
please call 404.270.5607 or visit
www.spelman.edu/museum. ●