Charlotte H. Scott

Charlotte H. Scott

Charlotte H. Scott, Professor Emerita of Commerce and Education at the University of Virginia, died peacefully on Thursday at the Westminster-Canterbury Health Center in Charlottesville. She was 84.

Born Charlotte Anna Hanley on March 18, 1925 in Yonkers, New York to Charlotte Agnes Palmer Hanley and Edgar Bernard Hanley, she attended Yonkers High School and graduated from Barnard College in 1947.

She married Nathan A. Scott Jr. in 1946, and they moved to Washington, D.C. and later to Chicago. She worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 1956 until 1971, and she served as Assistant Vice-President from 1971 until 1976. She also earned an M.B.A. degree from the School of Business of the University of Chicago in 1964.

She was the first African-American woman to be appointed a Vice-President at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Her husband, the late Nathan A. Scott Jr., was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1955 until 1976 and a priest of the Episcopal Church.

Charlotte and Nathan came to Charlottesville in 1976, when they both accepted appointments to the faculty of the University of Virginia. They were the first African-Americans to be appointed to tenured faculty positions at the University.

She served as University Professor of Business Administration and Commerce, and Senior Fellow, Tayloe Murphy Institute, Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration from 1976 until 1986, and jointly with the Curry School of Education as University Professor of Commerce and Education from 1986 until 1998.

Her husband Nathan served as Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies and English from 1976 until 1981 and then as William R. Kenan Professor of Religious Studies from 1981 until 1990. He died on December 20, 2006.

Mrs. Scott was active in many community service activities. She served as President of the Women's Board of the Chicago Urban League from 1967 until 1969. She was a member of the Consumer Advisory Council of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1980 until 1982, and a member of the Charlottesville Advisory Board of NationsBank of Virginia from 1977 until 1983. She was also a member of the Commission on the Status of Women for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1982 until 1985. She was active for many years in the Barnard College Alumnae Association, serving on the Board of Directors and then as an Alumnae Trustee.

She also served on the Governing Board of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation from 1993 until 2004, and on the Board of Directors of the Charlottesville Community Scholarship program.

She was a longtime member of St. Paul's Memorial Church in Charlottesville.

For her many service activities, she was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of Humane Letters by Virginia Theological Seminary in 2006.

She is survived by her daughter, Leslie Hunter of Charlottesville, Virginia; her son, Nathan A. Scott III of Baltimore, Maryland; her son-in-law, John Hunter; her daughter-in-law, Carol J. Scott; her six grandchildren, Priscilla Sampil, Charlotte Ashamu, Emmanuel Ashamu, Elizabeth Ashamu, Nathan A. Scott IV, and Douglas Scott; and her late brother's wife, Shirley Hanley of Bethesda, Maryland.

A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, April 10, 2010, at St. Paul's Memorial Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Community Scholarship Fund, in care of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.

Friends may sign the register book at www.hillandwood.com.


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.