Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Honors Ohio State’s James L. Moore III
The Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award is given annually to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to international education at public land-grant institutions.
Cato T. Laurencin to Receive the Highest Honor of the American Chemical Society
Dr. Laurencin, who holds an endowed chair at the Univerity of Connecticut, is recognized as the leading international figure in polymeric biomaterials chemistry and engineering who has made extraordinary scientific contributions, while at the same time he has had profound contributions to improving human health.
Black Educational Pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune Honored With a Statue at the U.S. Capitol
Each of the 50 states is now permitted to choose who will represent the state in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol. Recently, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of what is now Bethune-Cookman Univerity in Daytona Beach, Florida, was unveiled to represent the state of Florida.
Tulane University’s Jesmyn Ward to Receive the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction
Jesmyn Ward, a professor of creative writing in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University in New Orleans, has been announced as the recipient of the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. At 45, Professor Ward will be the youngest person to receive the library’s fiction award. Professor Ward is one of only six writers to receive the National Book Award more than once and the only woman and the only Black American to do so.
University of Nebraska Renames a Building to Honor a Trailblazing Black Scholar
Gwendolyn Newkirk is believed to e the first faculty member of color in the College of Education and Human Sciences. In 1975, Dr. Newkirk was elected the first African American president of the American Home Economics Association, an organization that had previously refused to accept her as a member because of her race.
Carlotta Berry Wins the Distinguished Educator Award From the Society of Women Engineers
Carlotta A. Berry is the Dr. Lawrence J. Giacoletto Endowed Chair for Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. She has helped start two advocacy organizations, Black In Engineering and Black In Robotics, to bring awareness to systemic racism in STEM.
Charles Dumas Wins the Living Legend Award at the National Black Theatre Festival
Professor Dumas, who has written, directed, produced or acted in more than 300 plays, joined the faculty at Penn State in 1995 and now holds the status of professor emeritus. He is presently a professor in residence at the African-American Theatre Program at the University of Louisville.
Shaina Phenix Awarded the Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press
Shaina Phenix, an assistant professor of English at Elon University in North Carolina, is the winner of the 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. Phenix will receive a cash prize, and her manuscript To Be Named Something Else will be published in the Miller Williams Poetry Series in the spring of 2023.
Four Black Women Share an Award From the Association for Women in Mathematics
The four women mathematicians sharing the award are Erica J. Graham, an associate professor of mathematics at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Raegan Higgins, an associate professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University, Candice Price, an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Shelby Wilson, a senior professional at the Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Sandra Shannon Honored by the Association of Theatre in Higher Education
Sandra Shannon, professor emerita of African American literature at Howard University in Washington, D.C., is widely acknowledged as a major scholar in the field of African American drama. She is a leading authority on playwright August Wilson and is president of the August Wilson Society.
Two Black Scholars Honored by the National Council of Teachers of English
Adedoyin Ogunfeyimi, an assistant professor of composition at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, and Hiawatha Smith, an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls, have been honored with Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Awards.
Georgetown University’s Nadia E. Brown Wins Book Award
Nadia E. Brown, a professor of government and director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., is sharing the Ralph J. Bunche from the American Political Science Association. The award is presented annually to honor the best scholarly work in political science that explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism.
Penn State’s Felecia Davis Honored for Her Work in Digital Design
Felecia Davis, an associate professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Pennsylvania State University, has been named the winner of the 2022 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award in the Digital Design category for her work that explores the use of computational textiles.
Anthea Butler Is Honored by the American Academy of Religion
Anthea Butler, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania, has received the 2022 Martin E. Marty Award from the American Academy of Religion. The Marty Award is given annually to an individual whose work helps advance the public understanding of religion.
Altha Stewart to Receive the Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health
Altha J. Stewart, senior associate dean for community health engagement and associate professor of psychiatry in the College of Medicine of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, received the 2022 Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
Anita Allen Honored by the Hastings Center for Her Work in Bioethics
Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Allen was recognized for outstanding contributions to law and philosophy and to their practical applications in medicine, science, and public affairs.
Linda Darling-Hammond Wins the $3.9 Million Yidan Prize
Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of Education has been awarded the 2022 Yidan Prize for education research. She now serves as president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit focused on education research.
Harvard’s Jarvis Givens Will Receive the AAC&U’s Frederic W. Ness Book Award
The Frederic W. Ness Book Award is given annually by the American Association of Colleges and Universities to the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education. Dr. Givens will be honored at the association's annual convention in San Franciso this coming January.
Ernest Gaines to Be Honored With His Image on a U.S. Postage Stamp
The late Professor Gaines taught at the University of Louisiana Lafayette from 1983 to 2010. He was the author of nine novels and several short stories. The stamp will be the 46th in the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage series
Saddiq Dzukogi Awarded the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry
Saddiq Dzukogi, an assistant professor of English at Mississippi State University, is the winner of the third annual Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. The prize is presented to a living poet who is not a U.S. citizen for a full-length book of poems published in the previous year.
T. Elon Dancy II Honored by the Critical Race Studies in Education Association
T. Elon Dancy II, the Helen S. Faison Endowed Chair in Urban Education and executive director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh, recently received the 2022 Derrick Bell Legacy Award. The award honors critical race theorists, critical race studies scholars, and progressive educators-activists committed to advancing social justice and educational race equity.
Daphne Brooks of Yale University Honored by the American Musicology Society
Daphne Brooks, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Music at Yale University, was presented with the Music in American Culture Award from the American Musicological Society.
Rutgers University Newark’s John Keene Wins National Book Award for Poetry
John Keene is a Distinguished Professor and chair of Africana studies at Rutgers University Newark. He also is a professor of English and teaches in the master of fine arts program in creative writing. Professor Keene was honored for his 234-page collection entitled Punks: New & Selected Poems.
Harvard University’s Makeda Best Created the Photography Catalogue of the Year
Makeda Best, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums, recently received the prestigious Photography Catalogue of the Year award at the 2022 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards. Dr. Best was honored for her 2021 publication Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970.
Yale University’s Braxton Shelley Wins Four Awards for His First Book
Braxton Shelley, an associate professor of music and sacred music at Yale Divinity School, has won four awards for his book Healing for the Soul: Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination. The book uses the work of renowned gospel musician Richard Smallwood to explore the significance of vamp (a recurring musical phrase or chord progression) in Black gospel tradition and its potent and transformative spiritual power.
The American Geographical Society Honors Michigan State University’s Joe Darden
Joe T. Darden, Professor Emeritus in the department of geography, environment, and spatial sciences at Michigan State University, has been selected to receive the seventh Van Cleef Memorial Medal from the American Geographical Society for his distinguished work “in the field of urban geography.”
Four African Americans Receive Significant Honors From Louisiana State University
The School of Education and the Graduate School will be renamed to honor African Americans students who broke racial barriers at the university. The Design Building is being renamed for the university's first Black professor.
Nicole Joseph Honored for Her Work to Increase Opportunities for Black Girls in Mathematics
Dr. Joseph’s research stems from her own experience growing up feeling alone as a Black girl in a mathematics class where other students didn’t look like her. Her experiences shaped her drive to tell the stories of Black girls and women and how they differ from their White girl and Black male counterparts.
The Library of Congress Recognizes Rita Dove for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry
Rita Dove, the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, received the 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for lifetime achievement from the Library of Congress. Professor Dove has published 11 collections of poetry. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 and won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987.
Grinnell College in Iowa Honors Its First Black Graduate
Edith Renfrow Smith was the only Black student on campus when she graduated with a degree in psychology in 1937. Now 108 years old, Renfrow Smith is the oldest living graduate of the college.
Cynthia Nance Receives the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award
Nance, the Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the school, is serving as dean of the school for a second time. She joined the faculty in 1994 and served as dean from 2006 to 2011. She was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as dean in the school's then-82-year history. In July 2022, she was named dean for the second time.
La Marr Jurelle Bruce Wins First Book Award From the Modern Language Association
La Marr Jurelle Bruce is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. According to the Modern L:anguage Association selection committee's citation, "Bruce develops original and provocative readings across media and genres, and the impact of his work will be felt in multiple fields and disciplines."
Vaughn Booker Honored by the Council of Graduate Schools for His Book on Black...
The Arlt Award from the Council of Graduate Schools recognizes a young scholar-teacher who has written a book deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. Dr. Booker is the 52nd winner of the award.
Professor Jerrilyn McGregory Wins the Chicago Folklore Prize From the American Folklore Society
Jerrilyn McGregory, a professor of English at Florida State University, was honored for her book on Boxing Day traditions in the Anglicized Caribbean world, which encompasses the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, St. Croix, and St. Kitts.
Kelly Brown Douglas Wins the Grawemeyer Award for Religion
Kelly Brown Douglas is dean of the Union Theological Seminary’s Episcopal Divinity School in New York City. She also serves as a canon theologian at Washington Cathedral. She is one of the first Black female Episcopal priests in the United States and the first Black person to head an Episcopal Church-affiliated educational institution.
Miriam Mobley Smith Honored by the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists
Miriam Mobley Smith is the interim dean of the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. Prior to coming to the University of Hawai'i in 2021, the veteran pharmacy academic served as interim dean and visiting professor at the Northeastern University Bourvé College of Health Sciences in Boston and as dean and tenured professor at the Chicago State University College of Pharmacy.
