Notable Awards to African Americans in Higher Education

samaaSamaa Abdurraqib, a visiting assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at Bowdoin College, was named Volunteer of the Year by Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine.

Dr. Abdurraqib is a graduate of Ohio State University, where she majored in English. She earned a doctorate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Bobby-Wilson1_EDIT-260x300 Bobby Wilson, a professor of geography at the University of Alabama, has been selected to receive the 2012 Presidential Achievement Award from the Association of American Geographers. Professor Wilson is being honored for his career-long dedication to anti-racist scholarship in the field of geography on topics including housing, urban renewal, economic revitalization, and environmental justice. He will receive the award at the association’s annual meeting in Los Angeles in April.

Professor Wilson has taught in the University of Alabama system for 35, the last 10 at the Tuscaloosa campus. He is a graduate of North Carolina Central University and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Clark University.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts has been selected to received the Equity Award from the American Historical Association. The award recognizes the department’s success in placing nearly 100 percent of its minority historians into posts in academia. The award will be presented at the association’s annual meeting in New Orleans in January.

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