Tulane’s Jesmyn Ward to Receive the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Fiction
Jesmyn Ward, an associate professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans, will receive the fiction award at the 83rd Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Award ceremony in Cleveland this September. She is the only woman to win two National Book Awards.
Saint Louis University Honors the Late Black Scholar Norman White
Saint Louis University in Missouri has announced that it is establishing the Norman A. White Lecture that will present speakers "who embody the spirit of and commitment to social justice possessed by the late Saint Louis University faculty member." Dr. White died last December at the age of 64.
Shane McCrae to Receive the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry
Shane McCrae is an assistant professor of writing in the School of the Arts at Columbia University in New York City. McCrae joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2017 after teaching for three years at Oberlin College in Ohio.
Donna Y. Ford of Vanderbilt University Recognized for Her Diversity Efforts in Gifted Education
Dr. Ford teaches in the department of special education and holds a joint appointment in the department of teaching and learning at Vanderbilt. She holds the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair at the university’s Peabody College of education and human development.
Oregon State University Honors African American Novelist Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead has been selected to receive the 2019 Stone Award for Literacy Achievement from Oregon State University. The award is presented to an American author who has created a body of critically acclaimed work and has been a mentor to young writers.
Three African American Women Scholars Receive Prestigious Awards
The honorees are Zakiya Holmes Leggett of North Carolina State University, Cynthia Nance of the University of Arkansas School of Law, and Wanda Heading-Grant of the University of Vermont.
Tulane University’s Jesmyn Ward Nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction
The five finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award in fiction have been announced by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation in Washington, D.C. One of the five finalists is an African American: Jesmyn Ward, an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans.
University of Oklahoma Names an Academic Department to Honor Clara Luper
The University of Oklahoma has announced that it is recognizing educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper by naming the department of African and African American studies in her honor. Known as the "Mother of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Movement," she taught high school history for 41 years.
University of Montana Honors an Early Black Faculty Member
Gloria Hewitt taught at the University of Montana for 38 years and was one of the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics. A scholarship for graduate students in mathematics has been established at the university in her name.
Fannone Jeffers Wins the 2018 Harper Lee Award From the Alabama Writers’ Forum
Fanonne Jeffers, a tenured full professor of creative writing at the University of Oklahoma, will receive the honor during a gala dinner at the Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville, Alabama, on April 19.
Notable Awards for Three African American Faculty Members
The three honorees are Faye Belgrave, University Professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Aldon Morris, who holds an endowed chair at Northwestern University, and Jeremy Winston, an assistant professor of music and chorus director at Central State University in Ohio.
Honors or Awards for a Trio of African American Scholars
The honorees are David Crockett of the School of Business at the University of South Carolina, Anjelica Gonzalez of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and the late Carroll F.S. Hardy, a long-time administrator at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Freeman Hrabowski to Receive American Council on Education’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Hrabowski has served as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County since 1992. Over the course of his career, President Hrabowski has been a strong advocate for increasing opportunities for African American students in STEM disciplines.
Patricia Smith Wins the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Patricia Smith teaches in the English department at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York System. The $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, given out by Claremont Graduate University in California, is the largest in the world for a single volume of poetry.
Trudier Harris Wins Nonfiction Writing Award From the University of Alabama
Trudier Harris, University Distinguished Research Professor of English at the University of Alabama, received the Clarence C. Cason Award in Nonfiction Writing from the journalism department at the university for her body of work on women and Black southern writers.
Three African American Men Honored With Prestigious Awards
The honorees are Ernest E. Jeffries, associate dean of students at Davidson College, Robert Smith, a graduate of Tougaloo College who was a major figure in the civil rights movement, and Roscoe Mitchell of Mills College.
Berkeley’s First Tenured Black Scholar Has a Building Named in His Honor
Dr. David Blackwell, an accomplished statistician, joined the mathematics department at Berkeley in 1954 and stayed on the faculty there until retiring in 1988. In 1965, he was the first African American to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
Syracuse University’s Marcelle Haddix Wins Outstanding Book Award From AACTE
Dr. Haddix is being honored for her book Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me. Dr. Haddix will be honored at the association's 70th annual meeting in Baltimore.
Johns Hopkins University Scholar Honored for Work to Promote Diversity in Nursing
Phyllis Sharps, professor and associate dean for community programs and initiatives at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, was named as the recipient of the Diversity in Nursing Award from Modern Healthcare.
Two Black Scholars Honored by State Universities
Pamela Scott-Bracey of Mississippi State University, was named Collegiate Teacher of the Year by the Southern Business Education Association. Tennessee State University has announced that its multimedia newsroom will be named in honor of the late Getahn Ward, a long-time adjunct professor of journalism.
Reginald Rogers Named Educator of the Year by the National Society of Black Engineers
The Dr. Janice A. Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award from the National Society of Black Engineers is given annually to a collegiate faculty member who demonstrates commitment to advancing education in engineering, science or mathematics.
Kwame Dawes Names a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets
Kwame Dawes is Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He will serve as a judge for the Academy’s largest prizes for poets and act as an ambassador of poetry in the world at large.
African American Scholar Wins National Book Award in Fiction
Jesmyn Ward is an associate professor of English at Tulane University. This is the second time she was won the National Book Award in fiction. In 2017, she was chosen as a MacArthur Fellow.
Three African American Women Scholars Honored With Notable Awards
The honorees are Elizabeth F. Desnoyers-Colas an associate professor at Georgia Southern University, Stacy Hawkins, an associate professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, and Deborah Deas, the dean of the School of Medicine of the University of California, Riverside.
University of Cincinnati Names a Building After an Alumna and Civil Rights Pioneer
Civil rights leader Marian Spencer is being recognized by having a dormitory on the campus of the University of Cincinnati named in her honor. Ironically, when she was a student at the university in the 1940s, she was prohibited from campus housing due to her race.
Lauret Savoy Honored by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment
Lauret Savoy, the David B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, won an award for excellence in environmental creative writing for her book Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape.
Two Black Students at Harvard Awarded International Rhodes Scholarships
Two Black students at Harvard University have been awarded Rhodes Scholarships, allocated to their home country or region. Terrens Muradzikwa is an economics major from Zimbabwe and Mandela Patrick is a computer science major from Trinidad.
Notable Honors for Two African American Women in Academia
M. Shawn Copeland, a professor of theology at Boston College, was presented with the Marianist Award from the University of Dayton and Mary Jo Fayoyin, dean of library services at Savannah State University was honored by the American Library Association.
Colby College President’s House Named to Honor a Former Slave
Samuel Osbourne, born into slavery in Virginia in 1833, came to Maine after the Civil War and served as a janitor at the college for 37 years. His daughter was the first African American woman to graduate from Colby College.
Stretch of Interstate 85 in North Carolina Named to Honor John Hope Franklin
Now, nearly nine years after the death of one of the most prolific and respected historians of the twentieth century, a section of Interstate 85 near Durham, North Carolina, has been designated the Dr. John H. Franklin Highway.
Two African Americans Scholars Receive Notable Honors
The honorees are Shelly Haley, professor of classics and professor of Africana studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and Eric A. Stewart, a professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University.
Simmons College in Boston Names a College in Honor of Journalist and Alumna Gwen...
Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, announced that it will rename its College of Media, Arts and Humanities after Gwen Ifill, the noted journalist and Simmons College alumna who died in 2016.
A New Tribute to Educator and Civil Rights Icon Benjamin E. Mays
Earlier this month a new statue of Benjamin E. Mays, the educator and civil rights leader was unveiled at the Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site near Epworth, South Carolina, near where Dr. Mays was born. Dr Mays was president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967.
Three African American Men From the Academic World Receive Distinguished Honors
The honorees are Wayne A.I. Frederick, president of Howard University, George C. Hill, professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and Roderick L. Ireland, a Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Ladee Hubbard to Receive the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence
Ladee Hubbard, who teaches in the Africana studies program at Tulane University in New Orleans, is being honored for her debut novel The Talented Ribkins, the story of an African American family whose members have unique superpowers.
Washington State University Scholar to Be Awarded the Bullitt Environmental Prize
Cornelius Adewale, a doctoral student in the School of the Environment at Washington State University, is working on improving the environmental impact of agriculture. He hopes to develop methods to reduce chemical fertilizers but produce more food.
