Locality
Richmond
Occupation
Business Professor
Biography
Charlottesville native Ruth Coles Harris is the great-granddaughter of slaves and grew up during the Great Depression. She graduated at the top of her class at Virginia State College (later University) in 1948 with a degree in business. As an African American woman in the age of Jim Crow, Harris was obliged to leave the state to pursue her education further, and she earned an MBA from New York University in 1949. She joined the faculty at Virginia Union University and taught in the commerce department. During her nearly forty-eight year tenure, the small department expanded into the Sydney Lewis School of Business. As the business school's first director, Harris oversaw the development of its comprehensive curriculum and the growth of its enrollment to more than 400 students. At her retirement in 1997, she was named a Distinguished Professor Emerita.
Hoping to inspire her students, in 1962 Harris took and passed the two-day examination to be a certified public accountant at a time when there were fewer than 100 African American CPAs in the nation. She became the first black woman in Virginia to be certified.
During her career Harris served on several state commissions and on local and national community and professional boards of directors. In 1977 she received her doctorate in education from the College of William and Mary. In 1998 Virginia Union awarded Harris with a Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition of her many contributions to that institution and her field.
Nominated by Maureen Cheatham, librarian at Matoaca High School, in Chesterfield County.
Listen to Ruth Coles Harris's interview with WTJU (2015).
2015 Virginia Women in History honoree, Library of Virginia.
Hoping to inspire her students, in 1962 Harris took and passed the two-day examination to be a certified public accountant at a time when there were fewer than 100 African American CPAs in the nation. She became the first black woman in Virginia to be certified.
During her career Harris served on several state commissions and on local and national community and professional boards of directors. In 1977 she received her doctorate in education from the College of William and Mary. In 1998 Virginia Union awarded Harris with a Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition of her many contributions to that institution and her field.
Nominated by Maureen Cheatham, librarian at Matoaca High School, in Chesterfield County.
Listen to Ruth Coles Harris's interview with WTJU (2015).
2015 Virginia Women in History honoree, Library of Virginia.
File Citation(s)
Image Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Johnston Memorial Library, Virginia State University.