Remembering Dr. Gloria Harper Dickinson (1947-2009)

Abstract

Dr. Gloria Harper Dickinson, a former president, member of the executive council, and leading figure in the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), head of African American Studies at the College of Jersey, and International Regional Director of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, died of breast cancer on 18 January 2009. Born in Queens, York, on 5 August 1947, she graduated from Hunter High School in York City, received her B.A. in history from City College of York, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in African Studies from Howard University (1978). Dr. Dickinson taught in the public schools of Camden, Jersey for several years. In 1978 she joined the African American Studies faculty at Trenton State College, now the College of Jersey, where she served as an Associate Professor and chair of the department. Dr. Dickinson's academic expertise included Africana literature and religion, black popular culture, women writers of the African Diaspora, and Media and Africana Studies. She lectured and wrote on the novels of African American science fiction novelist Octavia Butler, Nigerian novelist Buchi Emecheta, British anthologist and publisher Margaret Busby, and American novelist John A. Williams. Her analyses of the popular culture and cuisines of Diaspora peoples; the literature, history, and contemporary activities of women of African descent; and the Africana presence on the Information Superhighway have been both informed and enriched through extensive travel in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, and North and South America. In 1995 Dr. Dickinson was among the representatives from every continent at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, where she spoke about the struggle of women on the African continent to address issues of equal rights for women, domestic and political violence, and female circumcision. The American Embassy in Muscat, Oman (2003) and the American Consulate in Strasbourg, France (2001) hosted Dickinson as Black History Month speaker. She conducted programs for students, military personnel, academics, and Foreign Service officers. As a member of the American Social History Project's New Media Classroom National Faculty, and the Georgetown University Visible Knowledge Project research consortia, Dr. Dickinson's pedagogical work included a research project on the impact of technology and visual images on student learning. She also served as the lead consultant to the Media Classroom/NEH HBCU Learning to Look initiative with Spelman College and Dillard University; hosted the 2001 Digitizing Divas faculty development institute for humanities professionals; developed Media materials for Africana Studies by infusing the latest technologies into Africana Studies curriculum design; and trained educators on methods and materials for introducing technology and Africana Studies into public school and/or university curricula. Her Teaching Africana Studies and Humanities with Technology consultancies have included presentations at the National Humanities Center, University of Maryland College Park, Clark-Atlanta University, Temple University, Howard University, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Millersville University, Bates College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Ecole Normale Superieur in Dakar, Senegal. Dr. Dickinson co-authored the 1990 and 1991 editions of Tougaloo College's Mission Involvement Program textbook; contributed biographical sketches of police officer Margaret Creswell Hiawatha, AME Zion pastor Rev. …