Monthly Archives: March 2016
George Washington Carver Fungi Collection Found at the University of Wisconsin
Recently researchers at the Wisconsin State Herbarium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison came across of 25 specimens of fungi that were collected by George Washington Carver more than a century ago.
Virginia Commonwealth University Acquires Rare Copy of All-Negro Comics No. 1
The 48-page comic book was published in 1947 and features characters such as police detective Ace Harlem and Lion Man, a college-educated scientist and superhero. It was the first comic book written and draw solely by African American writers and artists.
Oregon State University to Digitize Oral Histories of Black Railroad Porters
The archive includes 29 reel-to-reel tapes of interviews conducted by filmmaker Michael Grice that were used as background for his documentary Black Families and the Railroad in Oregon and the Northwest.
Yale Scholar Edits the Earliest-Known Manuscript of an African American Prison Inmate
Austin Reed, an indentured servant who was born free in Rochester, New York, describes his experiences in the 1830s through 1858 in New York's House of Refuge, a juvenile reformatory.
Toni Morisson Delivering the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University
The lecture series was endowed in 1925 with the honoree designated as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for the duration of the six-lecture series. Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate and professor emerita at Princeton University, is this year's honoree.
H. James Williams Named President of Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati
Dr. Williams was president of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 2013 to September 2015. Previously, he served as dean of the business school at Grand Valley State University.
A Statistical Portrait of First-Year Students at Black Colleges and Universities
This nationwide survey prepared by UCLA compares current first-year students in terms of characteristics such as family income, grades in high school, future goals, study habits, political views, and social activities.
The University of Pittsburgh Names a New Vice Provost and Dean of Students
Kenyon Bonner has served in this role on an interim basis since January 2015 and has been on the university's staff since 2004. Before being named interim dean of students, Bonner was associate dean of students for seven years.
University of Southern California Study Shows Extent of Black Invisibility in Entertainment
The report examines 109 major films and 305 television programs in 2014 that included more than 11,000 speaking characters. Some 22 percent of all these films or TV shows had no African American characters.
The New President of Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama
Since 2010, Dr. Sykes has served as president of Alabama Southern Community College in Monroeville. Earlier in his career, President Sykes was dean of students at Meridian Community College in Mississippi.
University Study Finds Racial Discrimination by Mortgage Loan Originators
The results showed that some mortgage loan originators did not response to people with African American sounding names, others rejected applications outright, and others delayed their responses so that the potential borrower was apt to take their business elsewhere.
Howard University Is the Only HBCU Among the Top Producers of Peace Corps Volunteers
Howard University in Washington, D.C. was the only HBCU that made the list of the top 25 producers of Peace Corps volunteers in the three categories of large universities, medium-size colleges and universities and small colleges and universities.
Ross Gay to Be Presented With the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is given annually to a mid-career poet. Ross Gay teaches in the creative writing program at Indiana University and for the low-residency master of fine arts degree program in poetry at Drew University in New Jersey.
Texas HBCU Signs Agreement With the National Institute of Technology of Mexico
The National Institute of Technology of Mexico is headquartered in Mexico City and operates 263 campuses throughout the country. Now students at any campus will be eligible for study abroad opportunities at Prairie View A&M University.
New Faculty Positions for Three Black Scholars
Rexford Ahima was appointed the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Diabetes at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Judith S. Casselbury was promoted and granted tenure at Bowdoin College in Maine, and Andre L. Churchwell was named to an endowed chair at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Tuskegee University Receives Donation of Historic Building
The estate of the late Jock Smith, a co-founder of the Cochran Firm, led by Johnnie Cochran, has donated a historic building where he housed his law offices to Tuskegee University.
Seven African Americans Named to Administrative Posts in Higher Education
The appointees are Martino Harmon at Iowa State, Monica Green at Indiana University, Brian Dickens at Ithaca College, Joy Jefferson at Old Dominion University, Ebony Lewis at the University of California, Davis, Jasmine Buxton at Delaware State, and Ericka M. Jackson at Wayne State.
Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers
From time to time, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week’s selections.
Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.
Georgetown University to Offer African American Studies Major
The new African American Studies major includes 10 courses and offers concentrations in language, literature, arts, and culture or in history, behavioral science, and social inquiry.
African Americans Are More Than 10 Percent of Harvard’s Record Applicant Pool
A full quarter of all applicants to Harvard this year had their application fee waived due to financial hardship. Some 10.6 percent of all applicants are African Americans.
Higher Education Grants of Interest to African Americans
Here is this week’s news of grants to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
University to Rename Auditorium That Honored a White Supremacist
The board of trustees of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro has voted to rename Aycock Auditorium on its campus. Charles Brantley Aycock, a former governor of North Carolina, was a staunch segregationist and led efforts to disenfranchise Black voters in the state.
New Documentary Film Examines Race Relations on College Campuses
The documentary film Remixing Colorblind is the work of Sheena Howard, an assistant professor of communication at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
In Memoriam: Bettye Lois Grigsby, 1966-2016
Dr. Grigsby was an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She also served as chair of the department of leadership and policy analysis and was chair of the doctorate of education in educational leadership program at the university.
