George Mason Honors Civil Rights Icon Roger Wilkins
George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, recently named its North Plaza in honor of Roger Wilkins, a civil rights leader, journalist, and a former long-time faculty member at the university. Wilkins died this past March.
Chemical Engineer at Arizona State Honored as Educator of the Year
Jean Andino, an associate professor of chemical engineering at Arizona State University, received the Educator of the Year Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
Colson Whitehead Honored Once Again for His Novel The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead won the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for fiction presented by the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation. The novel has previously won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, and the Carnegie Medal of Excellence.
Council of Social Work Education Honors June Gary Hopps for Lifetime Achievement
June Gary Hopps is the Thomas M. "Jim" Parham Professor of Family and Children Studies in the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia. Earlier she was dean of the Boston College School of Social Work.
Distinguished Honors for Three African American Faculty Members
Professor Charles Ogletree is having an endowed chair named in his honor at Harvard Law School. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Florida State University was honored for lifetime achievement in dance and Trudier Harris of the University of Alabama has honored for being the first tenured Black faculty member at the College of William and Mary.
Four Black Scholars Receive Prestigious Honors or Awards
The honorees are Barbara Krauthamer of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Chinyere Oparah of Mills College in Oakland, California, Livingston Alexander of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, and Anthony K. Wutoh of Howard University.
Honors and Awards for Five African Americans With Ties to Academia
Those presented with awards or who received honors are Torina D. Lewis of Clark Atlanta University, Hank Aaron at the University of Notre Dame, Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, Thomas J. Freeman of Texas Southern University, and Wilma Harper Horne at Hampton University.
Julian Randall Selected to Receive the 2017 Cave Canem Award in Poetry
Julian Randall, a second-year student in the master of fine arts creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize from the Brooklyn, New York-based Cave Canem Foundation.
A Historical Marker at the University of Alabama Honors Autherine Lucy Foster
After a three-year legal battle, in 1956 Autherine Lucy Foster enrolled in a graduate program in education at the University of Alabama. Angry protests by White students ensured. Foster was suspended three days later "for her own safety" and she was later expelled.
University of Virginia School of Medicine Honors an Early Black Graduate
Dr. Vivian Pinn was the only woman and the only African American in the 1967 graduating class. She later served for 20 years as director of the Office for Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health. Now, the medical research building at the University of Virginia has been renamed in her honor.
College of Business Administration at Alabama State University Named for Former Dean
Alabama State University has named its College of Business Administration to honor Percy J. Vaughn Jr. Dr. Vaughn was recruited to establish the College of Business Administration in 1975. He served as dean for 35 years until his retirement in 2010.
Darlene Clark Hine Receives Lifetime Achievement Award From the Southern Historical Association
The John Hope Franklin Lifetime Achievement Award is given out every five years. The award committee stated that "we cannot conceive of a more deserving candidate. Hine's career has been deeply active, productive, and consequential."
Natasha Trethewey Wins the $250,000 Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities
Natasha Trethewey, the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has been selected to receive the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities. The award comes with an unrestricted $250,000 prize. She will be honored in Pittsburgh on October 18.
Gloria Chuku Receives the 2017 Ali Mazrui Award for Scholarship and Research Excellence
Gloria Chuku, chair and professor of Africana studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, received the 2017 Ali Mazrui Award for Scholarship and Research Excellence from the Toyin Falola Annual Conference on African Diaspora. She is the first woman to receive the award.
Ophelia Weeks Named Professor Emerita at Florida International University
Ophelia Weeks, who served for more than 30 years on the faculty at Florida International University in Miami, stepped down from her post earlier this year. Now, she has been granted the title of professor emerita. She has not retired. In April she was named president of the University of Liberia in Africa.
Stillman College Scholar Shares a Screenwriting Award
Linda Royster Beito, associate dean of arts and sciences at Stillman College in Alabama, will share first prize in the Alabama Writers' Conclave 2017 Screenwriting Competition. The screenplay deals with civil rights leader T.R.M. Howard's involvement with the Emmett Till murder case.
Alvia Wardlaw Honored by the Association of African American Museums
Alvia Wardlaw is a professor of art history and director and curator of the University Museum at Texas Southern University in Houston. In 1996, she became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in history at the University of Texas at Austin.
Cornell University Historian Russell Rickford Wins the Hooks National Book Award
The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis has announced that Russell J. Rickford is the winner of the 2016 Hooks National Book Award. The award is given to an author of a book that "best advances an understanding of the American civil rights movement and its legacy."
Black Scholar to Be Honored by the American Meteorological Society
The award honors Dr. Marshall Shepherd's work in rainfall climatology and its effects on urban areas. He will receive the honor at the society's annual awards banquet on January 10.
Dartmouth’s Rashauna Johnson Is a Finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize
Three finalists have been named for the 19th annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize that recognizes the best book on slavery, resistance, and/or abolition published in the preceding year. Only one of the three finalists is African American.
Beverly Daniel Tatum Selected to Receive the Prestigious Gittler Prize
The prize honors an individual who has made lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations. Dr. Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College in Atlanta, will receive a medal and a $25,000 prize at a ceremony in October 2018.
University of Iowa Names Building to Honor Alumna Elizabeth Catlett
Elizabeth Catlett is one of the most celebrated sculptors of the twentieth century. The granddaughter of slaves, she was the first African American woman to earn a master of fine arts degree at the University of Iowa.
Honors for the First Black Woman to Receive a Bachelor’s Degree at Vanderbilt University
In 1967 Dorothy J. Phillips became the first African American women to earn an undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The university has established a fellowship program and an endowed chair in her honor.
A Trio of Black Scholars Honored With Distinguished Awards
The honorees are Em Claire Knowles of Simmons College in Boston, Tressie McMillan Cottom of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and Robert A. Winn of the University of illinois at Chicago.
Tuskegee University Honors Its First Chaplain, John W. Whittaker, 1860-1936
This past Sunday, Tuskegee University held a chapel service to honor John W. Whittaker, the educational institution's first chaplain. The service was part of the Whittaker family reunion that took place on campus.
Alabama State University Professor Wins the 2017 Balcones Poetry Prize
Jacqueline Allen Trimble, chair of the department of languages and literatures at Alabama State University in Montgomery, was named as the recipient of the 2017 Balcones Poetry Prize from the Balcones Center for Creative Writing at Austin Community College.
Only One Black Scholar Among This Year’s 22 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences
Ibrahim I. Cissé, the Class of 1922 Career Development Assistant Professor in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will receive $240,000 over the next four years from the Pew Charitable Trusts to support his research.
Michigan State University Historian Wins Prestigious Book Award
LaShawn Harris, an associate professor of history at Michigan State University in East Lansing, received the 2017 Philip Taft Prize from the Labor and Working-Class History Association and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Ohio University Chillicothe Honors Joseph Carter Corbin
A native of Chillicothe, Ohio, and a two-time graduate of Ohio University, Joseph Carter Corbin moved to Arkansas in 1872. Three years later he founded the Branch Normal College, which today is the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Sabrina Strings Wins a Hellman Fellowship to Complete a Book on Fat Stigma
Sabrina Strings is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She will use the fellowship to complete work on her book, Thin, White & Saved: Fat Stigma and the Fear of the Big Black Body.
Notable Honors Awarded to Two African American Women in Higher Education
Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, was honored by the U.S. Presidential Scholars Foundation and DiOnetta Jones Crayton, associate dean for undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received an award from the Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network.
Members of the New Executive Team at Kentucky State University
Christopher Brown II, the new president of historically Black Kentucky State University in Frankfort, has announced a series of new executive appointments for his leadership team.
Notable Honors for Two African American Male Scholars
The honorees are William Darity Jr., the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies and Economics at Duke University, and Kenon Brown, an assistant professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Alabama.
Bucknell University Honors its First African American Graduate
Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, recently unveiled a bust of Edward McKnight Brawley, who in 1875 became the first African American to graduate from the university. He went on to serve as president of what is now Selma University in Alabama. Brawley also was president of Morris College in Alabama.
Notable Honors for Two African American Scholars
Davene M. White of Howard University received the inaugural Director's Award from the Office of Research on Women's Health of the National Institutes of Health. Lester Spence, an associate professor of political science, received the Provost's Prize for Faculty Excellence in Diversity from Johns Hopkins University.
Bennett College in North Carolina Names a Building in Honor of Johnnetta Cole
Johnnetta B. Cole, the former president of Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, was recognized by having a dormitory named in her honor on the college's campus. The Johnnetta Betch Cole Honors Hall will be reserved for students with at least a 3.0 grade point average.
