Dolores Richards Spikes

 Just the other day, I was talking with someone about mathematicians and I realized I could name more male ones than female ones modern or ancient.    I think it might have to do with more males are listed in textbooks for most of the standard theorems.  So I decided that every so often, I'd highlight a female African American mathematician who was not one who worked for NASA but had a career that changed things.

Dolores was born on August 24, 1936 to Margaret and Lawerence Richards in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  She attended both parish and public schools through elementary and high school to get her high school degree but she grew up in a household that encouraged her to attend college because neither parent graduated from high school.   In 1954, she began attending Southern University and in order to pay for it, her father worked a lot of overtime.   Three years later, she obtained her B.S. in mathematics and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Upon graduation, she attended University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign working towards her Masters degree of mathematics.  When she graduated, she returned to Louisiana and took a job teaching at Mossville High School in Calcasien Parish in 1958, the same year she married Herman Spikes.  She improved the ratings of the school by implementing independent study courses before returning to Southern University in 1961 to teach mathematics as an assistant professor.

She applied for and received a National Science Foundation to attend LSU in 1966, to work on her Phd but she was only able to go there for one year but in 1968, she received a three year Ford Foundation Fellowship that allowed her to attend college to continue her education.  In 1971, she earned the distinction of becoming the first African American to receive a PhD from Louisiana State University and was immediately promoted to associate professor of mathematics at Southern University.  She earned a PhD in pure mathematics specifically focused on commutative ring theory with. her thesis on "Semi-Values and Groups of Divisibility". Then in 1975, Southern made her a full professor and six years later she was appointed to as a part-time assistant to the Chancellor of Southern and coordinator of the mathematics program.

One year later, she became full time assistant to the Chancellor and remained in the position for three years when she was appointed as executive vice-chancellor in 1985 and later vice-chancellor for Southern University Baton Rouge.  Later in the 1980's she became the first female chancellor of two different Southern University campuses and later on, she became the first woman president of both the Southern University system and the  A & M college system.  In 1996, she became the president of  the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for five years.

Before her death, June 1, 2015, she received numerous awards such as the Thurgood Marshall Educational Achievement Award, the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Education Fund Leadership Award,  and was named as one of the most influential black women in America by Ebony magazine.

and served as an adviser to historically black colleges.  She outlived her husband who died in 2008 and her only daughter who passed in 2010. Dolores managed to set several firsts in her career. I plan to touch on minority mathematicians every so often so we can tell our students about them.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.