Virginia Commonwealth University’s First Novelist Award Given to Raven Leilani
Raven Leilani, who has served as an Axinn Foundation Writer-in-Residence at New York University, is the recipient of the 2021 Cabell First Novelist Award given by the creative writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University. The award, now in its 20th year, honors an outstanding debut novel published during the preceding calendar year.
Yale School of Public Health Names a Scholarship After an African American Alumna
The executive master’s degree in public health scholarship at the Yale School of Public Health is being named in honor of Irene Trowell-Harris, the first African American woman in the history of the U.S. Air National Guard to be promoted to brigadier general and subsequently, in 1998, to two-star major general.
Vanderbilt University’s Clanitra Nejdl Honored by the American Association of Law Libraries
Clanitra Nejdl, head of professional development and research services librarian at the law school Vanderbilt University in Nashville, won the Emerging Leader Award and shared the Spectrum Article of the Year Award from the American Association of Law Libraries.
Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University Is the 2020 Hooks National Book Award Winner
The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis has named Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., as the 2020 Hooks National Book Award Winner for her book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America.
Ohio State’s Dorian Harrision Wins Award From the National Council of Teachers of English
Dr. Harrison's research focuses on issues of identity and power in literacy education, paying particular attention to how race, class, and language impact teaching and learning. She advocates for the need for culturally and linguistically diverse texts.
Professor Rebecca Wanzo of Washington University in St. Louis Has Won Two Book Awards
Rebecca Wanzo, professor and chair of women, gender, and sexuality studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won two major awards in the field of comic book studies for her book The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging.
J. Herman Blake Wins the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociology Association
J. Herman Blake, professor emeritus of sociology and founding provost of Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and former president of Tougaloo College in Mississippi, was honored for his lifetime achievements in advancing the field of sociology through the positive impact of his work.
University of Pittsburgh Scholar Wins the Charles Horton Cooley Book Award
Waverly Duck, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, received the Charles Horton Cooley Book Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Dr. Duck was recognized for co-authoring the book Tacit Racism, which examines the many ways in which racism is coded into the everyday social interactions of Americans.
New Center Named for the Founder of Africana Studies at Washington and Lee University
Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, will name a new interdisciplinary academic center for teaching and research on Southern race relations, culture, and politics in honor of late professor of history emeritus Theodore “Ted” Carter DeLaney Jr.
Two Universities Bestow Honors on Civil Rights Icon James Lawson
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, which expelled Lawson in 1960 for his civil rights activities, will launch the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements. The University of California, Los Angeles, where Lawson has taught for 20 years, is naming a historic building in his honor.
Virginia State University Names Four Buildings to Honor Black Alumnae
Virginia State University has announced new names for four buildings on campus that will now honor Black alumnae. In March 2021, the university announced the removal of the names and signs identifying the four buildings saying the buildings were named for individuals whose past beliefs were not consistent with the beliefs and legacy of Virginia State University.
Tenille Gaines Honored by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors
Tenille Gaines is the associate director for counseling in Michigan State University’s Counseling and Psychiatric Services department. She will receive the Harriet Copher Haynes Diversity Leadership Mentoring Award. The award honors “talented mental health professionals of diverse identities who aspire to become counseling center directors.”
The American Political Science Association Honors the University of Chicago’s Cathy Cohen
Cathy J. Cohen, the David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor in the department of political science at the University of Chicago, received the 2021 Hanes Walton, Jr. Career Award from the American Political Science Association. The award honors a political scientist whose lifetime of distinguished scholarship has made significant contributions to the understanding of racial and ethnic politics.
Consuelo Wilkins of Vanderbilt University Will Be Honored for Her Work in Promoting Health...
Dr. Wilkins is senior vice president for health equity and inclusive excellence at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and senior associate dean for health equity and inclusive excellence in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She will be honored during a ceremony at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia on November 4.
Western Michigan University Honors Its First Black Bachelor’s Degree Recipient
Merze Tate, the first Black student to earn a bachelor's degree from Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University) will have University College - the academic home for exploratory majors - named in her honor.
The Society for Epidemiologic Research Names Award for Duke University Scholar
The Society for Epidemiologic Research has announced the establishment of the Sherman A. James Diverse and Inclusive Epidemiology Award. The award will recognize research, teaching, or service by an individual that expands the scope of the field to underrepresented or disadvantaged populations or researchers and that has facilitated greater diversity and inclusiveness.
Tarisha Stanley Wins the Teaching Literature Book Award for Her Work on Octavia Butler
Tarshia Stanley, dean of the division of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, and professor of English at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been selected as the winner of the Teaching Literature Book Award, an international prize for the best book on teaching literature at the college level. The award is presented biennially by the graduate faculty in English at Idaho State University.
Duke University Renames Building to Honor Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke
Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke was one of the first five Black students to integrate the Duke campus in 1963. She becomes the first Black woman to have a campus building named after her. She joins historian John Hope Franklin and campus architect Julian Abele as having buildings or grounds named after them on the Duke campus.
Bowdoin College’s Michael Cato Honored for His Efforts to Promote Diversity
Michael Cato, senior vice president and chief information officer at Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine, is the recipient of the 2021 Diversity, Education, and Inclusion Award from EDUCAUSE, the nonprofit informational technology association.
Lisa Harrison of Ohio University Recognized for Her Contributions to Middle-Level Education
Lisa Harrison, an associate professor and program coordinator for Middle Childhood Education at Ohio University, is the recipient of the John H. Lounsbury Award for Distinguished Service in Middle Level Education from the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE).
Howard University Honors Its First Dean of Women
The 2400 block of 4th Street NW in Washington, D.C. has been renamed Lucy Diggs Slowe Way. Slowe was valedictorian of the Howard University Class of 1908 and was the university's first dean of women.
University of Illinois Scholar Cynthia Oliver Named a Doris Duke Artist
Cynthia Oliver is an award-winning dancemaker, performer, and a professor of dance at the University of Illinois. She also serves as associate vice chancellor for research and innovation in the humanities at the university.
Mary Frances Berry Wins the Lewis Award for History and Social Justice
The Lewis Prize is offered annually to recognize a historian for leadership and sustained engagement at the intersection of historical work, public culture, and social justice. The prize is named in memory of John Lewis, the civil rights icon who represented Georgia in the United States House of Representatives for 34 years.
University of North Carolina Student From Eswatini in Southern Africa Named a Rhodes Scholar
Takhona Hlatshwako, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a new Rhodes Scholar from the Kingdom of Eswatini in Southern Africa (formerly Swaziland). Hlatshwako is the 52nd Rhodes Scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Late Congressman John Lewis Honored by the University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz has announced that College Ten — an undergraduate residential learning community founded on principles of social justice and community — will be named in honor of the late congressman and civil rights icon John R. Lewis.
Serena Eley Wins Award for Scholarship, Mentoring, and Service in the Field of Physics
Serena Eley, an assistant professor of physics at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, studies the dynamics of vortices in superconductors and skyrmions (nanoscale whirlpools of magnetic moments) in magnetic materials.
University of Pennsylvania’s Elijah Anderson Wins the 2021 Stockholm Prize in Criminology
The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is an international prize established under the aegis of the Swedish Ministry of Justice. First awarded in 2006, the prize recognizes outstanding achievements in criminological research or the application of research results to reduce crime and advance human rights.
CalTech Names Its New Mentoring Award to Honor Trustee Shirley Malcom
The California Institute of Technology has established the Shirley M. Malcom Prize for Excellence in Mentoring. The prize honors senior trustee Shirley Malcom's long-standing commitment to make STEM education and access equitable for all.
Two Black Scholars in Georgia Share the Breakthrough Idea Award in Management
Leon Prieto, an associate professor in the College of Business at Clayton State University in Georgia, and Simone Phipps, an associate professor in the School of Business at Middle Georgia State University, were named the winners of the Breakthrough Idea Award from Thinkers50, a London based organization that ranks the world’s top management thinkers.
University of Rochester Student From Zimbabwe Wins a Rhodes Scholarship
Kudzai Mbinda, a senior chemical engineering major at the University of Rochester in New York from Harare, Zimbabwe, was one of two Rhodes Scholars chosen from 10 finalists competing in the Zimbabwe competition. He plans to pursue a master’s degree in energy systems at Oxford.
Harvard Professor Tiya Miles Wins National Book Award in the Nonfiction Category
Tiya Miles has won the National Book Award in the nonfiction category. Professor Miles was honored for her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, A Black Family Keepsake.
Vincent Brown Wins the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center
Vincent Brown, a professor of African and African American studies and American history at Harvard University, will share the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. The prize is awarded each year to the “best book(s) written in English about slavery, abolition and their legacies across all borders and all time.”
Book Examines Language Development Among African American Youth
The award committee cited the book for making “a remarkable and unique contribution to the study of African American language, contributing to our understanding of how children construct identity, negotiate status and relationships, and transition across life stages by means of and as represented by their language.”
Jinx Coleman Broussard Honored for Her Mentoring Work in Public Relations
Jinx Coleman Broussard, the Bart R. Swanson Endowed Memorial Professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State Univerity, has been selected as the 2021 Bruce K. Berger Educator Honoree from the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations. The center is housed at the University of Alabama.
The Modern Language Association Announces the Winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize
Joshua Bennett, professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, was named the winner of the twentieth annual William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association. The prize is awarded for an outstanding scholarly study of African American literature or culture.
Berkeley Professor Rucker C. Johnson Wins the 2022 Grawemeyer Award in Education
Dr. Johnson studied the life trajectories of more than 15,000 children who grew up during the years school integration was federally enforced. He found that Black children who attended integrated schools had stronger educational, health, and income outcomes compared to their counterparts who remained in segregated schools.
