When Dorothy Cowser Yancy graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in 1964 with a degree in history and social science, this native of Cherokee City, Alabama, would not have predicted that she would later return to serve as the school’s first female president.

The upward mobility that characterizes Dr. Yancy’s career made her 1994 appointment as university president no surprise, with 30 years as a professional educator that included faculty and administration positions.

As a faculty member at Georgia Tech University, she was the first African American to be promoted and tenured, and in 1991, became the first African-American lecturer at the Academy of Public Administration and Social Studies of the Small Hural and Ulan Bator in Mongolia. In 1988, Newsweek on Campus selected her as "One of the Six Best Teachers in the U.S."

Since returning to her alma mater, Dr. Yancy has moved the school into a high-tech environment as the first HBCU “Laptop” university, issuing IBM Thinkpads to all of its students. This brought national recognition, resulting in her testifying before Congress in 2000 about the status of technology in higher education. She has provided the financial backing necessary for an effective academic institution to prosper. Since 1994, she raised more than $125 million for the university, with almost half of that designated for the university’s endowment, a more than four-fold increase from its original size.

Yancy was elected to a two-year term as president of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), the first female to reach this post. In the July 2002 issue of Savoy Magazine, she was listed as a “leader to watch.” In 2004, she received the Harold E. Delaney Exemplary Educational Leadership Award from the American Association for Higher Education.

The American Association of Higher Education Black Caucus has also recognized Yancy. In 2005, she was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal as one of the Top Women in Business in the region.

Dr. Yancy’s academic credentials include a M.A. degree in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Ph.D. in political science from Atlanta University with additional studies at several universities, as well as a certificate in management development from Harvard University.

She is listed as an arbitrator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services and the American Arbitration Association and is a special magistrate with the Florida Public Employee Relations Commission, the first African American appointed to that post.