Honors & Awards

Each of the 50 states is now permitted to choose who will represent the state in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol. Recently, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of what is now Bethune-Cookman Univerity in Daytona Beach, Florida, was unveiled to represent the state of Florida.

Dr. Laurencin, who holds an endowed chair at the Univerity of Connecticut, is recognized as the leading international figure in polymeric biomaterials chemistry and engineering who has made extraordinary scientific contributions, while at the same time he has had profound contributions to improving human health.

The Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award is given annually to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to international education at public land-grant institutions.

Marlese Durr, professor of sociology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, was honored with the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association. Dr. Durr has taught at Wright State University for 28 years. Her research and publications largely focus on African American women and managerial and labor markets in the public sector.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the Lawton and Nancy Smith Fichter Professor in the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University, received the Award of Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.

Awarded annually by the Gruber Foundation, the prize honors scientists for major discoveries that have advanced the understanding of the nervous system. The prize, which includes a $500,000 award, will be presented to Dr. Brown and his co-recipients on November 13 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Salamishah Tillet, the Henry Rutgers Professor of Creative Writing and African American and African Studies, is being honored for her commentaries in The New York Times on "Black stories in art and popular culture - work that successfully bridges academic and nonacademic critical discourse."

Vicki Crawford, an associate professor of African American studies and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was honored for her academic work as well as her efforts to spread the teachings and the philosophy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Spelman College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in Atlanta, announced that it will name the new 84,000-square-foot Center for Innovation & the Arts in honor of Mary Schmidt Campbell, the tenth president of the college, who is stepping down from her post.

Professor Powell teaches applied voice, art song literature and vocal pedagogy at Auburn University in Alabama. She also serves as the Women’s Chorus conductor and the Auburn University Gospel Choir’s co-conductor.

Administered by Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the awards are conferred annually to eight authors writing in English anywhere in the world. Two of this year's winners are African American women with ties to the academic world.

Emery N. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Health Sciences and Technology in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT and the Warren M. Zapol Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Altheia Richardson, assistant vice president for strategic diversity leadership at Clemson University in South Carolina, has received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. The award recognizes a completed dissertation that has contributed substantially to the literature and the field of diversity and inclusion in higher education.

George Johnson of South Carolina State University, Gloria Boutte of the University of South Carolina, Joyce King of Georgia State University, and Lagarrett King of the University at Buffalo are being honored by the Society of Professors of Education.

The Frederick Douglass Medal is a joint initiative of the Office of the President and the Frederick Douglass Institute established in 2008 at the University of Rochester to honor individuals of outstanding achievement whose scholarship and community engagement honor the legacy of Frederick Douglass. Dr. Johnson teaches at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Shawn Blanton, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, received the Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Academia from the National Society of Black Engineers. He is the founder and director of the Advanced Chip Test Laboratory at the university.

Glenn Loury is a professor of social sciences, economics, and international and public affairs at Brown University. The Bradley Prize is given to notable leaders whose accomplishments reflect the Bradley Foundation’s mission to restore, strengthen and protect the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism.

The Thomas Wyatt Turner Fellowship will support up to 10 graduate students from 1890 institutions, which are historically Black colleges and universities that are land-grant universities. They will spend the 2022-23 academic year on the Cornell University campus.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and author of five poetry collections, was the winner in the fiction category of the National Book Critics Circle Awards. She was honored for her novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

The Dan David Prize is the largest history prize in the world. It is awarded by the Dan David Foundation at Tel Aviv University in Israel to up to nine early and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines. The honor comes with a $300,000 prize. Kristina Richardson of Queens College-CUNY and Tyrone Freeman of IUPUI are among the winners.