Faculty Member 1983 - 2026
Remembering Gloria Jean Wade Gayles, Ph.D.
Gloria Jean Wade Gayles, Ph.D., served as a faculty member from 1983 to 2026, teaching in the English Department (1983–1998) and the Psychology Department (2001–2026). She was the director of the SIS Oral History Project in the Department of Psychology and led RESONANCE, a choral performance group at Spelman College.
Dr. Wade Gayles earned a B.A. in English from LeMoyne College (later named LeMoyne-Owen College in 1968), an M.A. in American Literature from Boston University (as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow), and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Meadville-Lombard Theological School of the University of Chicago and named the CASE Professor of Teaching Excellence for the State of Georgia.
A recipient of the Emory Medal for outstanding scholarship and service as an alumna of Emory University, she was a DuBois Fellow at Harvard University and held the Eminent Scholar’s Chair at Dillard University. Other awards included the Spelman College President’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the LeMoyne-Owen DuBois Scholar’s Award, and the Malcolm X Award for Community Service in the City of Atlanta for work as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement and her continued work for justice.
Her publications included numerous articles in national journals and six books, among them Pushed Back to Strength: A Black Woman’s Journey Home; No Crystal Stair: Race and Sex in Black Women’s Novels, and My Soul is a Witness: African American Women’s Spirituality. Her most recent publications were In Praise of Teachers (Beacon Press, May 2003) and Conversations With Gwendolyn Brooks University Press of Mississippi, December 2003).
She conducted a critical study of the community-as-savior motif in selected African-American novels. In August 2000, she was named Eminent Scholar’s Chair in Independent Scholarship and Service Learning at Spelman College.