Thomas Calhoun, associate vice president for academic affairs at Jackson State University in Mississippi, was presented with the 2015 James E. Blackwell Founders Award at the annual conference of the Association of Black Sociologists in Chicago. Dr. Calhoun is a past president of the association.
Dr. Calhoun is a graduate of Texas Wesleyan University in Forth Worth. He holds a master’s degree from Texas Tech University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Kentucky.
Conella Coulter Brown, now 90 years old, was presented with a diploma from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 1949, Brown was one of the first Black students at the University of Kansas City, which later was absorbed into the University of Missouri System.
Brown graduated from the University of Kansas City in 1953 with a degree in history. Unable to secure a job in the racially segregated school system, she moved to Cleveland where she had a long career in public education, retiring as assistant superintendent of the Cleveland Public Schools.
James Franklin Densler, professor of surgery at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, received the 2015 Volunteer Clinical Faculty Award from the Alpha Omega Honor Medical Society. Dr. Densler was the first African American pediatric surgeon to practice in the United States.
Dr. Densler is a graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia. He earned his medical degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
