Duke University School of Medicine Honors the Late Brenda Armstrong
Duke University commissioned a portrait of Dr. Brenda Armstrong, who was the second Black woman in the United States to become a board-certified pediatric cardiologist. She served as a professor of pediatrics, associate dean for admissions, and senior associate dean for student diversity, recruitment, and retention at the university's medical school.
Four Black Faculty Members Receive Notable Honors and Awards
The honorees are Tressie McMillan Cottom of Virginia Commonwealth University, Mejai Bola Mike Avoseh of the University of South Dakota, Cle Cousins of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and Derek D. Bardell of Delgado Community College in New Orleans.
Emory University’s Jericho Brown Wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
In selecting Professor Brown's collection of poetry for this honor, the Pulitzer board called it “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.”
University of Virginia Honors Its First African American Doctoral Graduate
In 1953, Walter N. Ridley earned a doctorate from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Dr. Ridley holds the distinction of being the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from a historically white university in the South.
Melissa Holloway Honored by the National Association of College and University Attorneys
Since May 2019, Mellissa Holloway has been general counsel for legal affairs at North Carolina A&T State University in East Greensboro. Earlier, she was deputy general counsel at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and general counsel at North Carolina Central University in Durham.
A Trio of African American Scholars Receive Notable Honors or Awards
The honorees are Milton Morris, the director of Environmental Health Science at Benedict College in South Carolina, Stephanie Luster-Teasley, a professor of engineering at North Carolina A&T State University, and Alexander Byrd, associate dean of humanities and associate professor of history at Rice University in Houston.
Baylor University Honors Its First Black Graduate Student in Religion
The department of religion in the College of Arts & Sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has named a graduate student scholarship program in honor of Robert L. Gilbert, the first Black student to receive an undergraduate degree at Baylor University and the first Black graduate student in religion.
University of Chicago’s Eve Ewing Honored at the Iowa City Book Festival
Eve Ewing is an assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. The Paul Engle Prize honors writers who demonstrate a pioneering spirit in the world of literature and a commitment to engaging with the issues of the day.
Anderson Sunda-Meya Wins the Excellence in Physics Education Award
Anderson Sunda-Meya, the Norwood Endowed Professor of Physics and associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University in New Orleans, has been awarded the 2021 Excellence in Physics Education Award from the American Physical Society.
Princeton University’s Deana Lawson Is the First Photographer to Win the Hugo Boss Prize
Sponsored by the German fashion house Hugo Boss and presented by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the prize has been awarded biannually since 1996 and was established to “embrace today’s most innovative and critically relevant cultural currents.” The prize is considered among the most prestigious awards within the contemporary art world.
Yale University’s Hazel Carby Wins Book Award From the British Academy
Hazel V. Carby is the Charles C. & Dorathea S. Dilley Professor Emerita of African American Studies & American Studies at Yale University. The daughter of a White Welsh mother and a Black Jamaican father, Dr. Carby taught at Yale for 30 years before retiring from teaching at the end of the 2018-19 academic year.
Danielle Phillips-Cunningham Honored by the National Women’s Studies Association
Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, an associate professor of multicultural women's and gender studies at Texas Woman's University, is the recipient of a 2020 National Women's Studies Association's Sara A. Whaley Book Prize.
Louisiana State’s Tina Harris Honored by the National Communication Association
Tina M. Harris, who holds the Douglas L. Manship Sr.-Dori Maynard Race, Media, and Cultural Literacy Endowed Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication, won the Francine Merritt Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication.
Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr. Honored by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Professor Gates received the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The award has been given out only seven times since it was established in 1975.
Shirley Ann Jackson Wins Award From the American Association of Physics Teachers
Dr. Jackson was chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1995 to 1999. She then left government service to take over as the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1999. She was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in any discipline from MIT.
North Carolina A&T State University Names New Engineering Complex After Its Chancellor
The new Harold L. Martin, Sr., Engineering Research and Innovation Complex, scheduled for completion in August, is a $90-million facility that will enhance the research and instructional capacities of a college that leads the nation in the graduation of African American engineers.
Nicole Fleetwood of Rutgers University Wins National Book Critics Circle Award
Dr. Fleetwod's book - Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration - which took nine years to complete, is based on scores of interviews with incarcerated people and their families, prison staff, activists, and other observers. It explores the importance of people in prison creating art as a means to survive incarceration.
Yale’s Marcella Nunez-Smith Honored to Her Work to Address COVID-19 Racial Disparities
Dr. Nunez-Smith, an associate professor and associate dean for health equity research at Yale Medical School, was honored for her work to address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and brown communities.
James L. Moore III Honored by the American Council on Education
James L. Moore III, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at Ohio State University, has been awarded the 2021 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award. The award honors individuals who have demonstrated leadership and commitment on a national level to the advancement of racial and ethnic minorities in higher education.
Princeton University’s Nathan Alan Davis Wins Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama
Nathan Alan Davis, the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Playwright-in-Residence at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University in New Jersey. Davis is an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Indiana University Bloomington, and The Juilliard School.
Two African American Faculty Members Win the Pulitzer Prize
Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., won the Pulitzer Prize in history and Mitchell S. Jackson, an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
