Anne Pruitt-Logan papers

Dr. Anne Pruitt-Logan (1929- ), educator, counselor and university administrator.

Dr. Anne Pruitt-Logan (née Anne Loring Smith) was born on September 19, 1929 in Bainbridge, Georgia. She attended Hutto High School where she graduated in 1945 and went on to Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating with a bachelor of science degree in psychology in 1949 with a double minor in education and German. Following attendance at Howard, Pruitt-Logan continued her education earning a master’s degree in guidance and student personnel administration with a minor in counseling from the Teachers College at Columbia University in 1950, and later a doctorate in education in guidance and student personnel administration in 1964. This doctorate was supported through out-of-state scholarships awarded by the Regents of the University System of Georgia for students who could not attend the University of Georgia because of race. She also earned a doctorate of humane letters from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio in 1982.

From 1950 to 1952, Pruitt-Logan worked as a counselor for women at Howard University. Following this stint, she returned to Hutto High School as teacher counselor for three years. She has taught or served in an educational capacity at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia from 1955 to 1959 and then at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee from 1960 to 1961. Beginning in 1964, she worked at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio for fifteen years. In 1979, she was recruited to be a professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio as an associate dean of the Graduate School. She was later appointed to a tenured professorship and graduate faculty status, becoming the first African-American woman full professor at the university. Since 1995, she has served as professor emerita at Ohio State University.

Pruitt-Logan’s experiences with unequal access to higher education inspired her work and research regarding segregation in higher education. She served on a number of educational organizations and political boards including the Southern Regional Education Board and the Southern Education Foundation, and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, with the goal of dismantling segregation in higher education. She is also a member of numerous professional organizations, such as the American College Personnel Association, the American Educational Research Association and the Ohio Association of Counselor Education.

Dr. Pruitt-Logan wrote books to assist faculty and incoming graduate students in preparation for a shifting academic landscape. Her dedication to ensuring success for her colleagues and students is evident in her three texts, Preparing Future Faculty in the Sciences and Mathematics: A Guide for Change (2002), New Students and Coordinated Counseling (1973); Black Employees in Traditionally White Institutions in the Adams States (1981); and Student Services for the Changing Graduate Student Population (1995). In 2012, she also co-wrote a biography with senior author Carroll L.L. Miller about Lucy Diggs Slowe, Howard University’s first dean of women, titled Faithful to the Task at Hand: The Life of Lucy Diggs Slowe.

Beyond academia, Pruitt-Logan was civically engaged in many local Ohio organizations including the Columbus Foundation; the American Red Cross; the Black Women’s Agenda, Incorporated; the Pilgrim Congressional United Church of Christ; and the Commission on the Future at Clemson University.

Following the death of Anne’s husband, Ralph L. Pruitt, Sr., she married Harold G. Logan. She is the mother of one daughter, Leslie, and stepmother to Diane, Pamela, Sharon and Ralph Pruitt, Jr., and Harold, Minda and Andrew Logan.

Sources:

https://myacpa.org/past-presidents/pruitt/ https://www.whoswhoofprofessionalwomen.com/listee-features/anne-pruitt-logan/