Lucy Diggs Slowe was an American educator and athlete, and the first Black woman to serve as Dean of Women at any American university. She was a founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the first sorority founded by African-American women. In 1922, Howard University selected Lucy Slowe as its first Dean of Women. Slowe was the first African-American female to serve in that position at any university in the United States. She also founded both the National Association of College Women, which she led for several years as first president, and the Association of Advisors to Women in Colored Schools.