Sybil Lenora Collins Mobley (October 14, 1925 – September 29, 2015) was Dean Emerita of the

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the Un ...

(FAMU) School of Business and Industry. She led its business program and was the founding dean of its Business School. She also oversaw community projects including a revitalization program for majority African American

Gretna, Florida Gretna is a city in Gadsden County, Florida, United States. The population was 1,460 as of the 2010 census, down from 1,709 at the 2000 census. It is on U.S. 90 approximately south of the Florida-Georgia border. Gretna is part of the Tallahasse ...

.https://books.google.com/books?id=hwr-Z2J__4sC&dq=gretna+florida.colored.school&pg=PA20

Early life and education

Sybil Collins grew up in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...

, where her father, Melvin Collins was an educator and founder of the '' Shreveport Sun'' newspaper, and her mother was a teacher. She graduated from high school and then attended

Bishop College Bishop College was a historically black college, founded in Marshall, Texas, United States, in 1881 by the Baptist Home Mission Society. It was intended to serve students in east Texas, where the majority of the black population lived at the t ...

in Texas, where she was an outstanding student. Opportunities for employment were slim and she accepted a job as a secretary at FAMU in 1945. Years later, she was recognized for her business skills and encouraged to take the graduate school admissions exam and excelled. She was accepted into the

Wharton School of Finance The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where she made the Dean's List. She was then entered the University of Illinois, where she completed her classwork towards her doctorate in one and a half years.

Career

Mobley rose from the ranks of a professor to department chair (1971-1974) to founding dean of the School of Business and Industry (SBI) from 1974 – 2003 (her fourth baby). During her tenure as SBI's dean, Dr. Mobley implemented her world-renowned Professional Leadership Development (PLD) Program, a leadership development program designed to teach students behavioral competencies to complement their academic preparation. To support her innovative PD and academic curricula, Dean Mobley started the SBI Big Board, which consists of over 100 plaques. Each plaque on the SBI Big Board represents a minimum donation of $100,000 endowed for scholarships. The earnings from the SBI Big Board accounts still enable SBI to provide scholarships to its "Superstars" today. As a result of her mega contributions to FAMU, Dr. Mobley received the designation of Dean Emerita upon her retirement.

Legacy and honors

In addition to serving as a master administrator in higher education and being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the State of Florida, Dean Mobley served on the boards of directors of Anheuser-Busch Company, Champion International Corporation, Hershey Foods Corporation, Sears Roebuck & Company, Southwestern Bell Corporation, Dean Witter, and Discover. Dr. Mobley and her husband, James Mobley, a successful entrepreneur, were also pioneers in the Tallahassee Civil Rights Movement. Some of Dean Mobley's other affiliations included

Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. () is the first intercollegiate historically African American sorority. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen stud ...

, the International Association of Black Business Educators, the National Association of Black Accountants, Florida Women's Hall of Fame, and the FAMU SBI Hall of Fame to name a few. Dr. Mobley served as a consultant to the United States Agency for International Development for multiple African countries, and she was awarded the FAMU Lifetime Achievement Award among numerous other awards. She received a

Candace Award The Candace Award is an award that was given from 1982 to 1992 by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) to "Black role models of uncommon distinction who have set a standard of excellence for young people of all races". Kandake, Candace ...

from the

National Coalition of 100 Black Women The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. (NCBW) is a non-profit volunteer organization for African American women. Its members address common issues in their communities, families and personal lives, promoting gender and racial equity. His ...

in 1982. Through her tenacious and assiduous efforts, Dean Mobley positively changed the personal, economic, and professional trajectory of hundreds of thousands of individuals, including her students, faculty, and staff – past, present, and future. Successful SBIans can be found in all industry sectors from education to the C-Suite of multinational corporations, and from entrepreneurs to non-profits all around the globe. Dean Mobley named the SBI alumni the "SBI Force" because she said that we would be a "force to be reckoned with" in the global economy. The ripple effects of Dean Mobley's commitment to excellence in business education and the world of business have been and will be felt for decades.

Death

Mobley died in the early morning hours of September 29, 2015, at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare after a brief illness. She was 89.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mobley, Sybil C. 1925 births 2015 deaths American university and college faculty deans Women deans (academic) Bishop College alumni People from Shreveport, Louisiana African-American women academics American women academics 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics 20th-century African-American women 21st-century African-American women Gies College of Business alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni