Honors and Awards

• Weldon H. Latham, senior partner in the Washington law firm Jackson Lewis and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, received the Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement Award from Howard University.

Latham holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Howard University and a law degree from Georgetown University.

• Johnnetta B. Cole, the anthropologist who served as president of both Spelman College and Bennett College for Women, and is now director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, received the George Washington Carver Medal from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.

• Vernon C. Polite, the late dean of the College of Education at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Polite died in March 2010 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 61 years old.

Dr. Polite was a native of Detroit. He was a graduate of Boston University and held a master’s degree from what is now the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He earned a doctorate in educational leadership and sociology from Michigan State University.

• Jill J. Harp, associate professor of biochemistry at Winston-Salem State University, received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors.

Dr. Hill is a graduate of York College of the City University of New York. She earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Maryland.

• Eddie Ellis, director of bands at South Carolina State University, received the Palmetto Patriot Award from the lieutenant governor of South Carolina for his commitment to public service.

Ellis is a graduate of Morris Brown College and holds a master’s degree in music education from Georgia State University.

• John T. Grayson, professor of religion at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, received the college’s Faculty Award for Teaching.

Dr. Grayson is a graduate of Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. He holds a master’s degree from Andrews University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

• Leyte Winfield, associate professor of chemistry at Spelman College in Atlanta, received the 2011 Minority-Serving Institution Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research Award from the American Association of Cancer Research.

Dr. Winfield is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans and holds a Ph.D. from the University of New Orleans.

• Mark Best, director of workforce readiness programs at Craven Community College in New Bern, North Carolina, was named staff person of the year by the North Carolina Community College System. Best is a 1978 graduate of Fayetteville State University.