Spotlight on Grace Alele-Williams 

Grace Alele-Williams was born on December 16, 1932, in Delta State to an Itsekiri mother and Owan father from Sobe in Edo State.

She was given the name Grace Awani Alele; however, she adopted the Alele-Williams name by which she is now known after her marriage to Babatunde A Williams.

Grace had her secondary school education at Government School, Warri, and Queen’s College, Lagos, graduating in 1949.

In the same year, she got into the University College Ibadan, now the University of Ibadan, and graduated with an Honours Degree in Mathematics in 1954. At this time University College Ibadan was not awarding its degrees and so the Honours Degree that she received was an external University of London degree.

During her undergraduate studies, every summer, Alele returned to her home town in Warri where she taught mathematics during the summer vacation at Hussey College, Warri in 1950.

Her interest in mathematics education was originally ignited by her stay in the US, which coincided with the Sputnik phenomenon. Working with the African Mathematics Program in Newton, Massachusetts, under the leadership of MIT professor Ted Martins, she participated in mathematics workshops held in various African cities from 1963 to 1975.

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She published the book Modern Mathematics Handbook for Teachers in 1974

As Director of the Institute of Education of the University of Lagos in 1975, she introduced certificate courses that were particularly important in training older women to become primary school teachers.

Alele-Williams, who was also the first Nigerian female to bag a doctorate, was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin in 1985.

She believes her appointment at the University of Benin, which ended in 1992, was a test case to demonstrate a woman’s executive capability.

Alele-Williams was the first president of the African Mathematical Union Commission on Women in Mathematics.

Alele-Williams received multiple awards including the order of the Niger in 1987; Fellow of the Mathematical Association of Nigeria; Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Education; merit award of the old Bendel State in Nigeria.

On February 28, 2014, she received the centenary award.

In December 1963, not long after returning to Nigeria from the United States, she married Dr Babatunde Abraham Williams (born 1932), a political scientist who, at the time of their marriage, was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ife Osun.

As of 2017, Alele-Williams had five children and 10 grandchildren.

Nigeria’s first female Vice-Chancellor, Professor Grace Alele-Williams, died on Friday, March 25, 2022, at the age of 89.