Honors & Awards

Honors and Awards for Three African American Scholars

James Rosser is having a building named in his honor at California State University, Los Angeles. Playwright Ntozake Shange will receive the Langston Hughes Medal from the City College of New York, and Adriel Hilton of Webster University was honored by the South Carolina College Personnel Association.

Five Finalists Announced for the Inaugural Harriet Tubman Prize

The award, presented by the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, recognizes the best book of the year on slavery, the slave trade, or anti-slavery topics.

University of Chicago to Honor Its First Black Woman Doctoral Degree Recipient

Georgiana Simpson enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1907 at the age of 41. Her presence of campus was protested by students from the South. But Simpson persisted and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in 1911 and a Ph.D. in 1921.

Notable Honors for Two African American Academics

The honorees are Robert Nobles, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Tennessee, and Renee Kirby, associate director of disability resources and services at Temple University in Philadelphia.

A Long Overdue Tribute to the First Black Woman to Graduate from the Yale School of Music

Helen Eugenia Hagan graduated from the Yale School of Music in 1912. She went on to a long career as a concert pianist and an educator. She died in 1964 but until recently her remains were buried in an unmarked grave in New Haven's Evergreen Cemetery.

Yale University Honors Its First Black Student

James W.C. Pennington took classes at Yale Divinity School beginning in 1834. He was not allowed to enroll but could audit courses from the back of classrooms. Pennington could not participate in classroom discussions and he was not allowed to take out books from the library.

Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors to Honor Dillard University President

Walter M. Kimbrough, the seventh president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana, has been selected to receive the Dr. Kent L. Gardner Award from the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors.

Legal Scholar Michelle Alexander Selected to Receive a $250,000 Heinz Award

Michelle Alexander is a visiting professor at the Union Theological Seminary and a senior fellow at the Ford Foundation. Earlier, she taught at Ohio State University and Stanford Law School. Professor Alexander is being honored for her research on racial disparities in incarceration rates.

Natasha Trethewey Awarded the 2016 Fellowship for Distinguished Poetic Achievement

Natasha Trethewey is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing and the director of the creative writing program at Emory University. She is the former poet laureate of the United States.

Two African American Women Scholars Honored With Prestigious Awards

Adrienne R. Carter-Sowell of Texas A&M University was honored by the American Psychological Association and Saundra Yancy McGuire of Louisiana State University was selected to receive an award from the American Chemical Society.

Nnedi Okorafor Wins Two of Science Fiction’s Most Prestigious Awards

Nnedi Okorafor, an associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York System, is only the fourth author in the past two decades who has won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for the same novella. The awards are among the highest honors given to science fiction authors.

University of Iowa Names Its New Residence Hall for Alumna Elizabeth Catlett

The University of Iowa is naming its newest residence hall in honor of Elizabeth Catlett, the celebrated artist and the first African American woman to earn a master of fine arts degree at the university.

T. Geronimo Johnson to Receive the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

T. Geronimo Johnson, who teaches creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley, is being honored for his 2015 novel Welcome to Braggsville. The novel tells the story of four Berkeley students who stage a protest at a Civil War reenactment event in Georgia.

The Higher Education of the Three Black Scholars Who Won Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards

The Rona Jaffe Foundation has announced six winners of its annual Writing Awards. The literary awards are only given to women who are in the early stages of their writing careers. Three of the six winners are African Americans with impressive higher education credentials.

Prestigious Honors for Two African American Professors

The honorees are Wayne J. Dawkins, professor of professional practice in the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Virginia, and Gibor Basri, professor of astronomy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Richmond Honors Virginia Union University Students Who Protested Jim Crow

On February 22, 1960, 34 students from Virginia Union University were arrested for staging a sit-in at a segregated lunchcounter of a downtown department store. The city has now honored this group with a historical marker.

Fayetteville State University Professor Wins a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award

Carole Boston Weatherford, a professor of English at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, is being honored for authoring one of the year's best books for children or young adults. Her book is on civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer.

Texas Southern University Team Wins International Entrepreneur Competition

The Texas Southern University team showcased their RadBlok device, an electromagnetic chip that improves cellphone reception, increases cellphone battery life, and protects the user from unwanted radiation.

Alicia Henry of Fisk University Wins the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art

In announcing the award the society stated that "Henry’s work specializes in painting, textile and mixed-media installation work that explores social relationships through depictions of the human figure shown in isolation and interacting with one another."

Honors and Awards for a Trio of African Americans With Ties to Higher Education

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland is honoring alumna and congressional representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones. LaDonna Christian of Simmons College in Boston was named Nurse Educator of the Year and the late Professor Clement Alexander Price is being remembered by Rutgers University-Newark.
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