Honors & Awards

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.

Emory University Scholar Honored for Exhibition on Black Civil War Soldiers

Pellom McDaniels III, curator of African American collections at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta, received the 2017 Primary Source Award for Research from the Center for Research Libraries.

Orlando Patterson Honored With a Portrait at Harvard University

In 2002, Harvard University allocated money to the Portraiture Project after it was revealed that of the hundreds of official portraits hanging on the walls of campus buildings, almost none were women or members of minority groups. A new portrait of Orlando Patterson is the 17th commissioned in the series.

Ohio State’s James Moore III Honored by the American Educational Research Association

Dr. Moore has been selected to receive the Scholars of Color Mid-Career Contribution Award and the Dr. Carlos J. Vallejo Memorial Award for Lifetime Scholarship from AERA's Multicultural/Multiethnic Education Special Interest Group.

Princeton University Recognizes Two Black Scholars by Naming Facilities in Their Honor

Princeton University in New Jersey has announced that West College, one of the oldest buildings on campus, will be renamed to honor professor emerita Toni Morrison. And an auditorium will be renamed to honor professor emeritus Sir Arthur Lewis. Both scholars are Nobel Prize winners.

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