John Keene, associate professor of English and chair of the African and African American studies department at the Newark campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been chosen as the recipient of the 2016 Lannan Literary Award for fiction.
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, the Blue and Gold Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware, is the winner of the Lorraine A. Williams Leadership Award from the Association of Black Women Historians.
Kelechi C. Ogbonna, an assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University, was named associate dean for admissions and student services and Jennifer Richeson was appointed the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology at Yale University.
The honorees are Phyllis Sharps of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Vievee Francis of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Megan Covington of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.
Darin A. Latimore was appointed deputy dean for diversity and inclusion at the Yale School of Medicine. Joi Cunningham was promoted to assistant vice president for human resources at Oakland University and Taffye Benson Clayton was named vice president for inclusion and diversity at Auburn University.
In the past, faculty members who taught courses in African American studies were members of established academic departments on campus. Now the university has hired the first two core faculty members of its African American studies program that was recently granted departmental status.
Marilyn Nelson is a professor emerita at the University of Connecticut. Professor Nelson is a winner of the Pushcart Prize and has been a finalist for the National Book Award three times. From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Nelson was the poet laureate of the state of Connecticut.
The new appointees are Anthony Berryhill at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Sonia Rankin at the University of New Mexico, Larry D. Johnson at St. Louis Community College, and Ronald Anthony Milon at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Professor Bond, who was a civil rights pioneer and led the NAACP for 12 years, taught at the University of Virginia for 20 years. He was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and served in the Georgia State legislature for 20 years.
The Gittler Prize is presented annually to a person whose body of published work reflects scholarly excellence and makes a lasting contribution to racial, ethnic or religious relations. Professor Crenshaw, who is on the faculty at the law schools of Columbia University and UCLA, will receive the award and a $25,000 prize in October 2017.
La Tanya Hall is teaching jazz voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. Michele Foster was named to an endowed chair at the University of Louisville and Jason Geary is the new director of the School of Music at the University of Maryland.
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.
Taking on new administrative duties are Kelechi C. Ogbonna at the School of Pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University, Darron Turner at Texas Christian University, and Jermaine Whirl at Greenville Technical College in South Carolina.
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.
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.
Taking on new roles are Keisha Bentley-Edwards at the Duke University School of Medicine, Cedric Merlin Powell at the University of Louisville, and Catherine Knight Steele at the University of Maryland, College Park.
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.
Appointed to new administrative positions are Rolundus Rice at Lincoln University in Missouri, Camille Kluttz-Leach at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, Rachel Vassel at Syracuse University in New York, and Marc A. Newman at Grambling State University in Louisiana.
Thew new Vanderbilt University faculty members are Jada Been Torres in anthropology, Brandon Byrd in history, Nicole M. Joseph in education, Sharece Thrower in political science, and Duane Watson in psychology and human development.
Here is this week’s listing of Black faculty members from colleges and universities throughout the United States who have been appointed to new positions or have been assigned new duties.
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.
The appointees are Marco Barker at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, George Johnson Sr. at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Joseph Michael Green at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Joanna N. Ravello at the University of Rhode Island.
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.
Marable was serving as a principal investigator and a deputy public defender for the state of New Jersey. He also was a practicing attorney specializing in child welfare issues.
Appointed to new administrative positions are Kathy Y. Time at Florida A&M University, Adriel A. Hilton at Webster University, Ulicia Lawrence-Oladeinde at Temple University, Edward Scott at Morgan State University and Jessie Brooks at Spelman College.
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.
Taking on new roles are Mae C. Jemison at Indiana University, Amanda B. Mbuvi at High Point University, Sarah Lewis at Harvard University, Lauren Sudeall Lucas at Georgia State University, Robert M. Sellers at the University of Michigan, and Norma Schropshire at Wayne State University.
Tau Kadhi has been serving as associate provost for academic programs and undergraduate research at North Carolina Central University in Durham. He will begin his new role at Albany State University in Georgia on November 1.
Appointed to new administrative posts are Elizabeth Lewin at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Anthony Andrews at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, Reginald Lewis at Rutgers University-Newark, and Robert M. Franklin at Emory University in Atlanta.
The four faculty members in new positions are Christina Knight at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, Jessyka Finley at Middlebury College in Vermont, Richard Souvenir at Temple University in Philadelphia, and Michael James at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
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.
J. Leon Washington was named dean of enrollment management at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and Michael Adams, a professor of public affairs at Texas Southern University, was named interim dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at the university.
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.
Taking on new assignments are Kosali Simon at Indiana University, Juli Grigsby at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, Bobby L. Wilson at Texas Southern University in Houston, and Marcus Bellamy at Boston University.
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.
The appointees are Danita Nias at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Wendy Wilson at Darton State College in Georgia, Lamont Sellers at the University of South Dakota, and Thurman D. Hollins at North Carolina Central University in Durham.