The award is named for Antioch’s longtime music department chair, the first African-American department head at a historically non-black institution of higher education.
Quandra Prettyman '54 grew up as the child of two school teachers in Baltimore, MD. She attended Antioch College where she majored in history, graduating in 1954. She studied English literature at the University of Michigan from 1955-1957. Quandra then moved to New York City where she worked in publishing and began teaching. In 1970, she joined the faculty of Barnard College in the English department.
In addition to teaching conventional English courses, Quandra’s interests led her to create new courses including The Harlem Renaissance; Slavery: the Woman’s Experience, Black and White; Minority Women Writers in the US (Native American, African American, Latina, Asian American); Literature of the Great Migration, and Early African American literature 1760-1890