Local leaders honor a pioneer in higher education

ATLANTA — Local leaders honored a pioneer in higher education Monday.

Channel 2’s Dave Huddleston talked to the local educator who paved the way for some of the area’s brightest minds.

Southwest Atlanta resident Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy was the first university president at not one, but two universities: North Carolina’s Shaw University and Johnson C. Smith University.

“None of us ever dreamed that a woman would be president,” Yancy told Huddleston.

She said it was an honor, but being first came with a price.

“It’s always difficult being the first one, but you have to understand you’re paving the way for those coming up behind you, and someone has to take the bullets,” she said.

She said they also dealt with things like cross burnings. She says at Georgia Tech, where she was the first full-time tenured African-American professor and teacher of the year, someone put a burning cross in front of an African-American sorority house. Yancy rushed to campus to lend support.

“It was sort of like an eye opener in terms of race relations for students and, you know, they all got themselves together and they moved forward,” Yancy said.

Yancy has been such a forward-thinking and positive force in the southeast that the Atlanta City Council presented her with a proclamation, recognizing her for being an education pioneer and helping shape so many young minds.

She says out of all that she’s done, teaching has been her passion.

“In a sense it still is, because when I see young people I want to know where you’re going to college, when you’re going to get there, what are you going to do,” Yancy said.

WSBTV