Ernest E. Jeffries, associate dean of students at Davidson College in North Carolina, received the 2018 Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award from the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. The center is housed at the University of South Carolina.
Jeffries has been on the staff at Davidson College since 1996. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Carolina and a doctorate from the Union Theological Seminary.
Robert Smith, a physician who treated civil rights workers who were victims of violence in Mississippi during the height of the civil rights movement, was awarded the Medal of Valor from the American Medical Association. In announcing the award, AMA president David O. Barbe stated that “Dr. Smith placed himself repeatedly in harm’s way and made it his mission to stand up for the health care rights of African Americans.”
Dr. Smith is a graduate of Tougaloo College in Mississippi and earned his medical degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Roscoe Mitchell, the Distinguished Darius Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California, received the Founders Award from the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
Over the past half century, Professor Mitchell has recorded over 100 albums and written hundreds of musical compositions.