Educating tomorrow’s leaders today
OUR STUDENTS | Alexandra Davis, AS14, 15M, and Tshilidza Ratshitanga, AS20M, have led very different lives, but the American woman conducting research in South Africa and the South African man pursuing a doctorate at the University of Delaware share at least one thing—a passion for social justice.
It’s a passion that led both to study public policy at UD. And it’s what administrators recognized by naming them the first two fellows in the University’s Littleton and Jane Mitchell Fellows Program for Civil Rights and Social Justice.
Alexandra Davis, AS14, 15M
Davis, the inaugural Mitchell Fellow, first came to UD from a New Jersey high school that focused on science, technology and engineering. She planned to major in biological sciences, but after joining the College of Arts and Sciences’ NUCLEUS organization—which provides academic support, career development, networking and research opportunities to students—she began to narrow her academic focus.
“My thirst for knowledge about the world and my desire to work with underserved communities led me to UD,” Davis says.
With the support of a Plastino Scholars enrichment grant (which funds student “passion projects”), Davis traveled to South Africa to study economic development in Soweto. After graduating in May 2014, she enrolled in the School of Public Policy and Administration’s (SPPA) master’s degree program in urban affairs and public policy and was awarded the first Mitchell Fellowship, which she calls “critical” to her graduate studies.
“Without the financial support, I surely would not have been able to stay on for the master’s degree,” Davis says. “Therefore, I am eternally grateful to SPPA and to Prof. Leland Ware for the opportunity.”
She worked with Ware, the Louis L. Redding Professor of Law and Public Policy and interim director of SPPA, on research projects involving civil rights and social justice, specifically an examination of racial disparities in student discipline. Now in her second year of graduate studies, Davis is back in South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar researching issues of economic development.
She says it’s a continuation of the same focus she had as a Mitchell Fellow: “Soweto [is] the oldest and largest township in South Africa, which was critical to the struggle against apartheid and continues to be plagued with high levels of poverty and unemployment,” she says.
Tshilidza Ratshitanga, AS20M
This year’s Mitchell Fellow, Ratshitanga followed a different path to his current position. After earning a bachelor’s degree in South Africa, he worked in government there for several years, then joined UD alumnus Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo, AS83M, 85PhD, and other colleagues in founding a respected think tank focused on social and economic prosperity for their homeland.
Vil-Nkomo, who helped write South Africa’s new constitution in the early 1990s, encouraged Ratshitanga to pursue doctoral studies in public policy, and he spoke highly of the SPPA program at UD. With the financial assistance of the Mitchell Fellowship, Ratshitanga took the leap, temporarily leaving his wife and children and arriving in Delaware this fall.
“My main interest is looking at how South Africa’s urbanization is impacting economic development,” he says. “The focus here at UD on urban affairs is very important to me. I feel that I’m able to make linkages between what’s been studied here in the U.S. and apply it to South Africa.”
His goal is to earn a doctorate, delving into urban challenges that America has faced, and to explore ways in which developing countries might avoid some of those problems. And, he says, he’s learned a lot about Littleton and Jane Mitchell and greatly admires them.
“The whole reason I came here to study is to empower myself to advocate for transformation in South Africa,” Ratshitanga says. “I feel honored to be associated with the Mitchells, who were such great advocates of equality and social justice.”
Article by Ann Manser, AS73
Civil rights leaders
When members of the Delaware legal and civil rights communities looked for a way to honor Littleton P. and Jane E. Mitchell for their decades of tireless advocacy and pioneering leadership, they naturally thought about how the couple’s legacy would be carried forward.
Littleton Mitchell, president of the Delaware NAACP during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, worked to end segregation in public institutions and to ensure equal treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system. Jane Mitchell, AS63, was the first African American nurse at Delaware State Hospital to treat both black and white patients. She later became the first African American nursing director in the state and was elected president of the State Board of Nursing. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women in 1988, among numerous other honors.
“This is all about developing leaders in social justice,” UD’s Leland Ware says about the fellowship program named for the Mitchells. “The Mitchells were such important leaders, and we are looking for people to continue their legacy.”
The Littleton and Jane Mitchell Fellows Program for Civil Rights and Social Justice, created through generous community support, is housed in the University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Ware, who is the Louis L. Redding Chair in Law and Public Policy and interim director of the school, also oversees the Mitchell Fellows program.
The program supports graduate students—selected for academic excellence, leadership potential and a commitment to social justice—and serves as a resource to engage the larger community through public events such as speakers and public service projects.
Littleton Mitchell served as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and was the first African American teacher to instruct white students in Delaware. A graduate of West Chester (Pa.) University, he spent his entire career as a counselor for the Governor Bacon Health Center, a Delaware-based mental health facility for children with physical and emotional disabilities. Jane Mitchell, a 1963 graduate of UD, served on the University’s Board of Trustees and was named to the Alumni Wall of Fame in 1998.
Mrs. Mitchell died in 2004 and Mr. Mitchell in 2009. Their papers are housed in Special Collections at UD’s Morris Library, where they are available to the public for review.
