Joseph Martin Stevenson is a recognized scholar in American higher education thanks to his scholarly work and journalism for such outlets as the Tennessee Tribune, the Clarion Ledger, and Greenwood Commonwealth. Born at historically Black Meharry Medical College and raised on the campus of Fisk University, Joseph has dedicated most of his professional life to America’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). His deep appreciation for the arts was anchored on the campus of Fisk, surrounded by historic figures, art galleries, monuments, and other monuments to African-American history, social justice, and civil rights. His subsequent lived experiences at HBCUs included time at Jackson State University, Tennessee State University, Howard University, Hampton University, Tougaloo College, Mississippi Valley State University, Miles College, Bethune Cookman University, and many others, which he toured as a subject matter expert for Technology Management Training, Inc. (TMT) of Huntsville, Alabama, and for the U.S. Department of Defense to survey and study HBCU research capabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

In this book, Dr. Jeton McClinton chronicles, highlights, and profiles Stevenson’s life and career in a uniquely qualitative journey. Through and from narratives, she captures much of his lived experience by connecting it to the growth of the Civil Rights Movement during Joseph’s human growth, development, accomplishment, and achievement as a “quintessential” academician. In the HBCU community, Joseph is often identified as the dernier cri and apogean American academic. Joseph’s early exposure to higher education from the HBCU space in the mid 1950s through the 1960s ignited, incubated, and initiated the development of his lived experiences of serving as academician, author, artist, and activist in higher education for social justice. These roles included serving as a provost seven times, in multiple deanships, and as an Eminent Scholar at Florida International University and Distinguished Scholar at Jackson State University. Readers interested in higher education will appreciate this intellectual biography of a man who grew out higher education and is the Founding and Emeritus Provost for the Global Digital Academy and the Distinguished Scholar and Senior Dean for Arts and Sciences at Wilberforce University, America's first private HBCU. In every position held by this noted Scholar, his personal core values centered and from early on embedded concerns for elevating social justice through higher education leadership. Joseph’s alma mater, the University of Oregon, recognized his leadership in this profound regard, and the Thurgood Marshall Fund awarded Joseph the “Outstanding Leadership in Higher Education” Certificate for his founding of the nation’s first Executive Ph.D. (EPhD) program in urban higher education leadership for aspiring HBCU leaders. Joseph was the first and still only African-American male to graduate with the Ph.D. degree in higher educational policy and management. Still committed to lifelong learning, Joseph takes classes at his neighborhood community college and studies human brain and hand neurology at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.