Spelman College is observing its Founders’ Week.
Here are five things to know about the Atlanta college, which has educated generations of women of African descent.
- The institution began in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary. It became Spelman College in 1924. 2. The first president was Sophia B. Packard. She served as a teacher and preceptor at the New Salem Academy where she met Harriet E. Giles. The two later co-founded Spelman.
3. In 1889, Nora Gordon, the first student to become a missionary to Africa, leaves for the Congo.
4. Spelman has a 76 percent graduation rate (average over six years).
5. In 1987 , Johnnetta Betsch Cole was elected as the first Black woman president. She was affectionately known as the “sister president.”
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