In Memoriam

Ella Pearson Mitchell (1918-2008)

Ella Pearson Mitchell, the first woman to serve as dean of the Sisters Chapel at Spelman College, has died in Atlanta. She was 90 years old.

Reverend Mitchell was a native of Charleston, South Carolina. She graduated from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City where she met her husband. The two shared a ministry for 60 years. They were co-mentors of the doctor of ministry program at the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. And they founded the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies in Los Angeles.

Mitchell also taught at the American Baptist Seminary of the West and the School of Theology in Claremont, California.

Kristin Hunter Lattany (1931-2008)

Kristin Hunter Lattany, a novelist and former professor of creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, died at a hospital in Stratford, New Jersey, after suffering a heart attack. She was 77 years old.

Lattany was the author of 11 novels. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she returned to her alma mater to join the English department faculty in 1972. There she taught creative writing, children’s writing, and African-American literature for 23 years.

Copyright © 2008. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.