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Women’s Leadership Conference Honors First Black Women Matriculating at Ga. Tech

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Each year, Georgia Tech’s Women’s Leadership Conference focuses on the celebration of outstanding women and their accomplishments. With the theme “Rise Above the Ordinary,” this year’s conference was no exception as the first black women who matriculated at the Georgia Institute of Technology were honored.

A number of the 2010 honorees, who attended Georgia Tech in 1970 and 1971, went on to attend institutions such as Yale, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mount Holyoke. Others, who were public school teachers, attended Georgia Tech through a National Science Foundation grant designed to equip them to develop computer science curricula for Atlanta Public Schools. After leaving, a number of the women provided support to send other gifted black students to Georgia Tech.

Among those representing the first black women to obtain degrees from Georgia Tech are Adesola Kujoure Nurudeen, Ph.D. in chemical engineering; Tawana Miller, first dual degree recipient to obtain a bachelor’s degree; and Grace Hammonds and Clemmie Whatley, the first recipients of master’s degrees in mathematics. Others honored included Alyce Martin Ware, retired publisher of the Atlanta Voice and Annie Bryant Smith, a retired educator from Kite, Ga., along with Bonnie Cameron, Yale University and New York University School of Law; Shirley Marshall, Alabama State College and Georgia State University; and Anita Turner, Rust College and Atlanta University.

Georgia Tech is among the top producers of women and minority engineers. The recognition of these outstanding black women coincides with the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of black students at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which celebrates the contributions that African-American students, staff and alumni have made to the Institute.

The Women’s Leadership Conference was held at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Student Center October 29-30.

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Lisa Grovenstein
  • Created:11/03/2010
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016