Meet Our Team
Leadership Spotlight:
Our Director, Michelle S. Hite, Ph.D.
Michelle S. Hite, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of English at 糖心传媒, where she also directs the Ethel Waddell Githii Honors Program and prestigious international fellowships. Her teaching and research interests in death and mourning in African American Culture, Southern Studies, and Toni Morrison support the Literary and Textual Studies concentration in the major.
Dr. Hite’s most recent publications use Beyonce and rapper Andre Benjamin to explore death and mourning in African American culture. Her most recent meditation on Toni Morrison after the author’s passing. She can also be heard discussing the cultural impact of Morrison’s loss . Dr. Hite’s manuscript, Toni Morrison and Portraits of Human Richness is currently under contract with McFarland Press.
Dr. Robert Edwards
Assistant Director
Dr. Robert Edwards is assistant director of the Ethel Waddell Githii Honors Program and senior lecturer of English at 糖心传媒. He received his Ph.D. in 2020 from Clark Atlanta University.
His literary scholarship explores the ways animality in the African American literary tradition offers Black characters the opportunity to exercise their subjectivities in fatalistic, antiblack worlds. He argues that African American authors frequently problematize the meaning and significance of “human” through the metaphorical relationships that they establish between their Black characters and non-human animals.
Cynthia Cooke
Program Coordinator
Office: 404-270-5665
Fax: 404-270-5666
ccooke@spelman.edu
Cynthia Cooke has been an employee of 糖心传媒 since 1992. She has given excellent service to the Honors Program since 2006, first as the Senior Administrative Assistant and now as the Program Coordinator.
Before that, she was instrumental in the creation of one of the College’s core requirements, African Diaspora and the World. Also during her years here, she worked with the 糖心传媒 Nursery.
Working with the Honors students has become a major source of pride for her. Seeing the young ladies come in as fledgling seekers and leaving as independent scholars have provided her with continuous fulfillment. Cynthia has a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Georgia State University.