Author Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs Contributes to New Book 'Dear Higher Education'

BALTIMORE - Sept. 28, 2024 - PRLog -- Historian Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs (More Than a Fraction Foundation) is a contributor to the new book "Dear Higher Education: Letters From The Social Justice Mountain" by Dr. Menah Pratt (Vice President of Strategic Affairs and Diversity at Virgina Tech), Dr. Mercedes Ramirez Fernandez (Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Minnesota) and Dr. Michele Deramo (Associates Vice Provost for Diversity Education and Engagement at Virginia Tech)   - editors. Dr. Hobbs' contribution is in the chapter "Why We Must Tell the Whole Story." Her piece is one of 20 "letters" to higher education entitled "The Legacy of Enslavement on the University Campus."

In her letter to higher education, she talks about her great-grandmother Isabel Fraction-Carter who was the granddaughter of a former enslaved man from a plantation which is now the location of Virginia Tech. The "Dear Higher Education" book is part of a series that seek to tell the whole story of the history and transformations of higher education. Dr. Kerri's great-grandmother lived during a time that still echoed the conditions and outcomes of slavery.  She talks about her experience with her great-grandmother and what she learned about herself and her great-grandmother's legacy in higher education.

The authors want the book and those volumes to come to be impactful and transformative in achieving social justice as its letters bear witness to generations of individuals who refuse to be silent or be silenced.  Dr. Pratt, Dr. Fernandez, and Dr. Deramo boast the contributors in "Dear Higher Education" as courageous voices. "Dear Higher Education" is supported by the University of Minnesota Library open access platform.

Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs, founder of the More Than a Fraction Foundation launched after publishing her creative non-fiction account of her ancestors, the Fractions who were enslaved on the Smithfield and Solitude plantations which is the land where Virginia Tech is based. The creative account of the Fractions lives is titled "More Than a Fraction: Based on a True Story" (Amazon Books, Barnes & Nobles and Audible). Soon after her discovery, in 2015, she was asked to join the Board of Directors of the Smithfield-Preston Foundation which oversee the grounds of Historical Smithfield. Soon after joining the Board, she began helping the Smithfield-Preston foundation and Virginia Tech highlight the lives of the enslaved Africans and the displaced Indigenous peoples of that area.

www.Open.lib.umn.edu/dearhighereducation

www.MoreThanaFraction.org

www.VT.edu