Lois Rice
| Lois Fitt Rice | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lois Dickinson February 28, 1933 Portland, Maine |
| Died | January 4, 2017 (aged 83) Washington, D.C. |
| Residence | Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Lois Dickinson Rice |
| Alma mater | Radcliffe College |
| Occupation | Business executive, academic |
| Spouse(s) | Emmett J. Rice, Alfred B. Fitt |
Lois Fitt Rice (February 28, 1933 - January 4, 2017) was an American corporate executive, scholar and education policy expert. Known as the ‘‘mother of the Pell Grant” for her work lobbying for its creation, she was national vice president of the College Board from 1973 until 1981. According to The Wall Street Journal, she was “among the first wave of African-American women serving on boards of major U.S. corporations,” and under president Bill Clinton she was a member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. For years she was an economic studies expert at the Brookings Institution concentrating on education policy.
Lois Fitt Rice (nee Dickinson) was born in Portland, Maine on February 28, 1933. Her parents were immigrants from Jamaica, her father David working as a janitor and her mother a maid. They encouraged her to pursue higher education, and Rice earned a bachelor's degree at Radcliffe College in 1954 in history and literature. At Radcliffe she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and would be a trustee. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Columbia University, and has honorary degrees from both Brown University and Bowdoin College.
In 1959, she joined the College Board and was a "longtime member of the College Board,” originally known during her time with the organization as the College Entrance Examination Board. She was an executive of the organization in 1972, when she pushed for the creation of the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program. It was later renamed the Pell Program, and widely enacted in the United States to help fund undergraduate educations. Rice was a major lobbyist for the creation of the Pell Grant, and according to the Washington Post, she was known as the “mother of the Pell Grant” for her role in helping create the program. According to Clay Pell IV, “This program was not inevitable, and it would not have come into existence without her, nor survived in the decades since without her passionate advocacy.” After the Pell Grant was established, she remained director of the College Board’s Washington Office, and was its national vice president from 1973 until 1981. During this time, she continued to promote the Pell program.
...
Wikipedia