Kimberlé Crenshaw Receives the Top Honor From the Association of American Law Schools

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is the Promise Institute Professor of Human Rights at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia University. She was honored by the Association of American Law Schools for her work on critical race theory and intersectionality."

Morgan State University’s Wayne Dawkins Honored by the News Leader Association

Wayne Dawkins, professor of professional practice in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University, is the 2021 recipient of the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship. The award, given in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage students of color in the field of journalism.

Anita Allen Wins the APA’s Highest Honor for Service to Philosophy

Professor Allen is an internationally renowned expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. In 2018-19, she was the first Black woman to serve as president of the American Philosophical Association.

Texas A&M’s Karen Butler-Purry Honored for Her Leadership in Graduate Education

Karen Butler-Purry, associate provost and dean of the Graduate and Professional School at Texas A&M University, has been named the 2021 recipient of the Debra Stewart Award for Outstanding Leadership in Graduate Education by the Council of Graduate Schools. She holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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