Florida State’s Andre J. Thomas Honored by the American Choral Directors Association
The award is the highest honor conferred by the American Choral Directors Association. It is given out every two years to a choral leader who has made unusual contributions to the art of choral music.
In Memoriam: Roger Wilkins, 1932-2017
Roger Wilkins, the civil rights legend, author, government official, journalist, and educator, joined the faculty at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1988 as the Clarence J. Robinson Professor in History and American Culture. He remained on the faculty for nearly 20 years.
Two Black Scholars Win National Book Critics Circle Awards
Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler Professor and chair of African American studies at Emory University in Atlanta won in the criticism category and Ishion Hutchinson, an assistant professor of English at Cornell University, won in the poetry category.
Two African American Women Earn Prestigious Honors
Gilda Barabino, dean of engineering at City College of New York, is being honored by the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and Janelle Baker of Alcorn State University was honored at the Health Disparities Conference at Xavier University in New Orleans.
University of Montana Scholar Honored for Her Work in Public Administration
Beverly Edmond, the interim provost at the University of Montana, shared the Trailblazer Award from the Conference of Minority Public Administrators, a division of the American Society for Public Administration. She and her co-author were honored for the book Trailblazing African American Public Administrators.
African American Author Who Teaches at Berea College in Kentucky Wins Two Book Awards
Crystal Wilkinson, the Appalachian Writer-in-Residence at Berea College in Kentucky, has won the 2016 Weatherford Award for Fiction from the Appalachian Studies Association and the 2017 Judy Gaines Young Book Award from Transylvania University.
Two African American Women in Dean Posts Honored With Major Awards
The honorees are Em Claire Knowles, assistant dean for student and alumni affairs at Simmons College in Boston and Bridgette Rahim-Williams, associate dean for research at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Walter E. Williams to Receive the $250,000 Bradley Prize
Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Professor Williams, a conservative economist, writes a syndicated newspaper column and is the author of 10 books.
University of Mississippi Anthropologist Among the Eight Whiting Public Engagement Fellows
The Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship celebrates and supports faculty in the humanities who embrace public engagement as part of the scholarly vocation. One of this year's eight fellows is an African American: Jodi Skipper of the University of Mississippi.
Notable Honors and Awards for Two Black Scholars
Monika Williams Shealey, a dean at Rowan University was honored by the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and Tina Simpson, associate professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham, won an award from the American Medical Women's Association.
New Scholarship Program at Indiana University School of Law Honors Julian Bond
Julian Bond, the noted civil rights leader, legislator, author, NAACP chair, and long-time faculty member at the University of Virginia who died in 2015, was the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Anna Deavere Smith Chosen to Receive the George Polk Career Award in Journalism
Anna Deavere Smith is a professor of art and public policy at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. An actress, playwright, and performance artist, Smith is the first winner of the Polk Award who is not a traditional journalist.
Honors and Awards for Four African American Scholars
The honorees are Hortense Spillers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Bettye M. Clark at Clark Atlanta University, Fenice Boyd of the University at Buffalo, and Derek B. Bardell of Delgado Community College in New Orleans.
Cornell University Scholar Honored for His Young Adult Literature
Lanre Akinsiku, a lecturer in English at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was honored by having two of this books selected for inclusion on the best books of the year for children and young adults by the New York Public Library.
Vievee Francis to Receive the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
The award, presented by Claremont Graduate University in California, honors a mid-career poet with a prize of $100,000. Professor Francis, who joined the Dartmouth College faculty last fall, will be honored in April.
Ohio University Scholar Honored for Her Contributions to Teacher Education
Renee A. Middleton, professor and dean of the College of Education at Ohio University in Athens, was honored for her outstanding contributions to teacher education by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Two African American Giants of Higher Education to Have Highways Named in Their Honor
The department of transportation in North Carolina plans to have stretches of interstate highways in the state named for Julius L. Chambers, who was chancellor of North Carolina Central University, and John Hope Franklin, the noted historian who was a long-time professor at Duke University.
Alabama State University Scholar Wins Best Book of the Year Award
Jacqueline Allen Trimble, chair of the department of languages and literatures at Alabama State University in Montgomery was named as the recipient of the Seven Sister Book Award for the best book of the year.
More Accolades for the Books of Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford, a professor of English at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, has been selected to receive the Randolph Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Book Award from the American Library Association.
Colorado College Scholar Wins Major Playwriting Award
Idris Goodwin, an assistant professor of theatre at Colorado College, has won the 2017 Blue Ink Playwriting Award from the American Blues Theater in Chicago. The award was created in 2010 to help the careers of budding playwrights.
Four Black Scholars Honored With Prestigious Awards
The honorees are Wanda Spurlock of Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Carmen Robinson of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Alex Acholonu of Alcorn State University in Mississippi, and Joy Buolamwini of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Crystal Wilkinson Wins the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence
Crystal Wilkinson, the Appalachian Writer-in-Residence at Berea College in Kentucky, has won the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence presented by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. The award recognizes outstanding work by an African American fiction writer.
Donovan Hicks, Wofford College Graduate, Named a Mitchell Scholar
Hicks graduated from Wofford College with a double major in government and finance and was a Gates Millennium Scholar. As a junior he was selected as a Truman Scholar. He also served as vice president of the student body at Wofford College.
Washington University Scholar Named a Newspaper’s “Person of the Year”
Jason Q. Purnell, an assistant professor in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, was named person of the year by the St. Louis American, which has the largest circulation of any weekly newspaper in Missouri.
Swarthmore College President Honored by Hong Kong Baptist University
Valerie Smith, president of the highly rated Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, was the recipient of an honorary doctor of letters degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. Dr. Smith was honored for her work on diversity, inclusion, and curricular innovation during her first year as president of the Swarthmore.
Toni Morrison Selected to Receive the 2016 Emerson-Thoreau Medal
The award was established in 1958 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to recognize lifetime achievement in literature. Professor Morrison will be honored at a ceremony in April in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Newest Inductee Into the George Washington Carver Public Service Hall of Fame
Clinton V. Turner is the former associate vice president for agriculture and extension at Virginia State University. He is the first Virginian to be inducted into the the George Washington Carver Public Service Hall of Fame in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Rutgers University Creates an Endowed Chair in Honor of the Late Clement A. Price
The Rutgers University Board of Governors has approved the creation of the Clement A. Price Chair in Public History and the Humanities. Professor Price served on the Rutgers University faculty for nearly 40 years until his death in November 2014.
University of North Alabama Honors its First Black Graduate
In a case that lasted only 10 minutes, Wendell Wilkie Gunn, with the help of famed civil rights attorney Fred Gray, obtained a court order demanding that he be allowed to enroll at what is now the University of North Alabama. He did so on September 11, 1963 and graduated in 1965.
Notable Honors and Awards Relating to African Americans in Higher Education
Tisha Lewis Ellison, an assistant professor of education at the University of Georgia, was honored by the Literacy Research Association, and The Colored Conventions Project at the University of Delaware, led by Professor P. Gabrielle Foreman, will receive an award from the Modern Language Association.
Major Awards for a Pair of Black Scholars
James A. Anderson, chancellor of Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, will be honored by the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education and Tanure Ojaide, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, received the Nigerian National Order of Merit.
Three Scholars Honored for Their Kentucky African American Encyclopedia
There are more than 1,000 entries in the encyclopedia detailing African American history from frontier days to the present time. More than 150 scholars contributed to the entries in the volume.
Honors for Two African American Women Scholars
Goulda A. Downer, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine at Howard University in Washington, D.C., was honored by the Institute of Caribbean Studies and Alcorn State University has renamed its Fine Arts Building to honor long-time faculty member Joyce J. Bolden.
Wake Forest University Names a Campus Building to Honor Maya Angelou
Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, announced that its newest residence hall will be named to honor Maya Angelou, who served on the faculty at the university from 1982 until her death in 2014. The building will be the first on the Wake Forest campus to be named for an African American.
Three Black Scholars Honored With Prestigious Awards
The honorees are Gilda Barabino dean of the School of Engineering at City College of New York, Karla Smith Fuller of Guttman Community College in New York City, and Yacob Astatke of the School of Engineering at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Rutgers University Scholar Wins Prestigious Literary Award
John Keene, associate professor of English and chair of the African and African American studies department at the Newark campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been chosen as the recipient of the 2016 Lannan Literary Award for fiction.
