Dr. William E. Cox—a veteran educator and business leader—who co-founded Cox, Matthews and Associates (CMA) the publisher of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, died early this week, after a lengthy illness. He was 79.
Born in Pensacola, Florida., on April 25, 1942, Cox was raised in the small industrial Alabama town called Bay Minette, which sits about 190 miles from Birmingham and forty miles from the Florida state border.
Though his parents did not have a college education, Cox was inspired by a Black high school principal who encouraged him to enroll in college. Following in the footsteps of his brother, Cox—one of four children—went on to Alabama A&M University where he majored in industrial arts and would meet his future bride, Lee Foster. The two married in 1964 and their two children—Will and Tara—would later assume leadership roles within CMA.
Cox would earn two master’s degrees in counseling psychology and public administration, before enrolling in an Ed.D. program in higher education administration. But it was his long civilian career in the U.S. military that brought him early accolades.
Dr. William E. Cox
Shortly after he graduated from Alabama A&M University, Cox worked at Redstone Arsenal, a United States Army post in Huntsville, Alabama. He was later reassigned to Frankfurt, Germany where he worked from 1968 to 1974 before returning to the Washington, D.C. area where he took a job at the Pentagon where he was responsible for spearheading all of the educational policies for the Air Force.
“That’s where he really made a name for himself,” said Will Cox about his father.
