Dr. Daphne Harrison

Former Chair and Professor Emeritus, Department of Africana Studies

Daphne Harrison came to UMBC in 1972 as an associate professor of Africana studies. In addition to her work as a teacher – during which she spearheaded a two-year effort by UMBC and Baltimore schoolteachers to discuss racism – she also acted as founding director of UMBC’s Center for the Humanities until her retirement in 1999. A scholar of music, she also has published a number of articles about the blues, and has written a book entitled Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s.

As a teacher, Harrison relished working with a variety of campus groups, including gender and women’s studies, the music department, the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, and others. “I love teaching and enjoy challenging students to be imaginative, to take risks, to stand up for what is right regardless of peer pressure,” she said. “As a result, I fell in love with every new group of students that walked into my classroom.”