Vida L. Avery, PhD is an award-winning author, researcher, and instructor, who loves history, movies and music, especially jazz! Her professional career spans 24 years in the educational arena with 13 years in the nonprofit sector as a former teacher, adjunct professor, foundation program officer, and a grant writer.

 

While researching the early philanthropists of the late-1880s to the early-1900s and how they affected change in society and education, particularly black higher education, she realized no one had ever told the story of the affiliation of the Atlanta institutions. Thus, her latest work: Philanthropy in Black Higher Education: A Fateful Hour Creating the Atlanta University System (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) that won the Outstanding Publication winner for the 2014 CASE John Grenzebach for Outstanding Research in Philanthropy for Educational Advancement. In the book, Avery explores the monumental 1929 affiliation of Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College that created the Atlanta University System (now the Atlanta University Center), and the instrumental role of John Hope, who was simultaneously the first black president of Morehouse College and Atlanta University. She tells the story from a different lens from which to view philanthropic relationships that extended beyond the simple categories of benefactor and recipient. 

 

Her desire to preserve the stories of black nonprofit leaders also led her to co-author a previous book, Race, Gender and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) that centers on the lives and experiences of female and black leaders of foundations and nonprofits.

 

Avery holds a Ph.D. in educational policy studies, with a major in higher education and a concentration in philanthropy, from Georgia State University, an Ed.S. and M.Ed. in education from Brenau University, and a B.A. in economics, with a concentration in business administration, from Spelman College. 

 

Currently, she lives in Houston, Texas where she is a Resource Development Specialist at the Center for Grants Development, Harris County Department of Education and an adjunct professor teaching a philanthropic class at Rice University, The Center for Civic Leadership.