PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – Many may remember the late Alvin E. Coleman, whom many students described as “one of the most incredible biology professors they have ever had.” His exemplary service to Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) included officiating the Prairie View Relays for over 25 years, serving as a charter member of PVAMU’s Kappa Alpha Psi Alumni Chapter, and participating as a founding member of the Prairie View Volunteer Fire Fighting Association Board of Directors. The professor who received the Key to the City of Prairie View in 2014 was known as “Al,” “Coleman,” or “Mr. Coleman,” but he was also known as a beloved and revered uncle of renowned scholar and public intellectual Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Alvin E. Coleman
Professor Gates has now established an endowed prize in Professor Coleman’s honor to support graduating PVAMU STEM students. The Alvin Coleman Prize will be awarded annually to the STEM student graduating with the highest academic honors.
Gates, a renowned literary and social critic, is a filmmaker and the creator of the “Finding Your Roots” television series on PBS. He serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Gates cites his uncle’s example as having inspired him to become an academic. “In retrospect, I realized that it was his model as a professor that most probably instilled in me, deep down somewhere, the idea that I might become a professor, too,” said Gates.
Both Gates and Coleman hail from West Virginia, where Coleman graduated valedictorian from Howard High School in Piedmont. Coleman earned a Bachelor of Science degree from West Virginia State College. After serving in the United States Army for two years, he returned to his studies and earned a Master’s Degree in Biology and Natural Sciences from Michigan State University.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Coleman began his professional career teaching biology, microbiology, botany, and zoology at PVAMU before joining the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and teaching at Milby High School and M.C. Williams High School in the Acres Home community. PVAMU recruited him back to “The Hill” to teach microbiology after he retired from HISD in 1987.
“Alvin along with other professors in the Biology Department educated outstanding students who received Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology, eventually becoming physicians and notable persons in the medical profession,” said John Fuller, Ph.D., a professor in the Roy G. Perry College of Engineering. Coleman was married to Fuller’s sister, PVAMU alumna, Redessa Fuller Coleman ’64 ‘66, who still resides at the Coleman home in Prairie View. “I think it is beautiful that Skip [Gates] is honoring his uncle and helping the students at PVAMU,” Mrs. Coleman said through tears.
Gates hopes that PVAMU will award the first Alvin Coleman Prize this year, or whenever public health conditions allow for an in-person presentation of the prize. He is committed to being present for the inaugural presentation of his uncle’s prize.
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