James R. Polkinghorne enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force right before his senior year at Florida A&M University. He completed pilot training at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama and in 1944 was sent to Italy as a squadron leader. During a combat mission, his airplane went missing and its crew was never found.
The honorees are Monica Walker, dean of development education and special academic programs at the Community College of Baltimore County, and Brandon Gamble, dean of student success at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama.
Jeffrey C. Stewart is a professor in the department of Black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He won the National Book Award for his biography of Harlem Renaissance leader and Rhodes Scholar Alain Locke.
The honorees are Franchon Glover, chief diversity officer at the College of Willliam and Mary, A. Eugene Washington, chancellor for health affairs and CEO of Duke University Health System, and Tony Allen, provost ane executive vice president at Delaware State University.
Ruby Cora Webster, the daughter of former slaves, was born in Ohio and moved with her family to St. Cloud, Minnesota, where she attended high school. Webster graduated from what is now St. Cloud State University in 1909 with a degree in elementary education.
Historically Black West Virginia State University will recognize Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member and alumnus Earl Lloyd with the naming of a street on campus in his honor. The basketball legend passed away on February 26, 2015.
The honorees are Patrick T. Smith, an associate research professor at Duke Divinity School, Barbara Ransby, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dawn Mellion-Patin, a vice chancellor at Southern University in Lousiana.
The honorees are Jerome H. Holland, former president of what is now Delaware State University, Tequila Harris of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Zachery S. Mitcham of North Carolina Central University, Taiyon J. Coleman of St. Catherine University in Minnesota, and Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, who is affiliated with Cornell University.
Tera W. Hunter, the Edwards Professor of History and professor of African American studies at Princeton University in New Jersey, has been awarded the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in women’s history and/or feminist theory as well as the Littleton-Griswold Prize in U.S. law and society from the American Historical Association.
Here is a listing of a group of African Americans in higher education who have been honored by colleges and universities or who have received notable awards from other organizations.
The University of North Carolina at Asheville has announced that it will rename the Humanities Lecture Hall to honor two African American couples who were among the first Black faculty members at the university.
Aaron N. Oforlea, an associate professor in the English department at Washington State University, has won the Creative Scholarship Award from the College Language Association. The international honor recognizes excellence in literary criticism.
The Oakes College Provost House at the University of California, Santa Cruz will be renamed to honor emeritus professor and founding provost J. Herman Blake. Kesha Morant Williams of Pennsylvania State University is being recognized by the National Communication Association.
The J. Walter Wilson Building will now be known as Page-Robinson Hall in honor of Inman Edward Page, one of the first two Black graduates of Brown in 1877, and Ethel Tremaine Robinson, who became the first Black woman to graduate from Brown in 1905.
The new research center, which will be formally inaugurated in early 2020, will focus on designing research projects on various topics on religion and society in Africa. Professor Sanneh taught at the University of Ghana from 1975 to 1978.
Wallace Best, professor of religion and African American studies and associated faculty member in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University, has received the 2018 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies.
The honorees are Valerie Kinloch, the Renee and Richard Goldman Dean of the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh, Menah Pratt-Clarke, vice president of strategic affairs and vice provost at Virginia Tech, and Andrea Scott, who teaches Spanish professor at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis.
The son of former Virginia slaves, Dr. Corbin was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1833. He was the third African American to attend Ohio University and the second to complete a bachelor’s degree. He founded and led the educational institution now known as the University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff for 27 years.
The honorees are Lance R. Collins, dean of engineering at Cornell University, La’Kitha Hughes, a facilities administrator at Jackson State University in Mississippi, architect David Adjaye, who was honored by Washington University in St. Louis and Jackie Hankins-Kent of Temple University.
The late Wilma L. Moore of Indiana University Libraries has had a scholarship named in her honor. Lenora Helm Hammonds of North Carolina Central University was named Artist-in-Resident at the University of Pretoria and Talitha Washington of Howard University was honored by the Mathematical Association of America.
The announcement that Dr. Rice would be the recipient of the Hubert Humphrey Award has upset some members of the political science field. Over 130 scholars have signed a petition calling for the American Political Science Association to revoke Dr. Rice’s award.
Janet E. Helms, the Augustus Long Professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award in Counseling Psychology by the Society of Counseling Psychology and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race.
Amanda Bryant-Friedrich is the dean of College of Graduate Studies at the University of Toledo in Ohio and Malika Jeffries-EL is an associate professor in the chemistry department at Boston University.
Stephanie Adams, dean of engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, received an award from the American Society of Engineering Education and Iris Rosa had the floor at the Indiana University dance studio named in her honor.
Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were the first African American students to enroll at the University of Georgia in 1961. But Mary Frances Early was the first African American to earn a degree from the University of Georgia. The university will unveil an official portrait in October.
Lorelle Semley, an associate professor of history at th College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, will share the Bentley Book Prize from the World History Association. Dr. Semley’s book, described by a reviewer as a “staple of reading lists for years to come,” explores the meaning of citizenship for French colonial subjects of African descent.
The Aeolians Choir of Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, has performed throughout the world and has achieved tremendous success in national and international competitions. They recently added three gold medals from the World Choir Games to their trophy case.
Claretha Hughes, an associate professor of human resource and workforce development at the University of Arkansas, was honored by being selected to be the editor of the August issue of the journal Advances in Developing Human Resources.
John Watson, an associate professor at American University in Washington, D.C., was honored by the National Association of Black Journalists and civil rights icon and former U.N. ambassador and mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young, will be honored by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
In October 1962, James Meredith became the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Rioting occurred on campus resulting in two deaths. Now Meredith is receiving the highest honored bestowed by the Ole Miss Alumni Association.
The honorees are Erin Berry-McCrea, a lecturer in the department of communications at Towson University in Maryland and Renee A. Middleton, dean of the College of Education at Ohio University in Athens.
The honorees are Alicia Nails, a lecturer in the department of communication at Wayne State University in Detroit, and Carolyn B. Murray, a professor of psychology at the University of California Riverside.
Rene Revis Shingles, a professor in the School of Rehabilitation and Medical Sciences at Central Michigan University, was elected into the Hall of Fame of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association. She is the first African American woman to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In 1939, Lucile Bluford, who had worked as a journalist for several newspapers, applied for admission to the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She was accepted for admission but later was turned away when university officials saw the color of her skin.
M. Shawn Copeland, professor of theology at Boston College, received the John Courtney Murray Award from the Catholic Theological Society of America. She is the first African American to receive the award.
Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. was a leading figure in the civil rights movement and an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. The new scholarships will be given to students from underrepresented groups who have shown a commitment to civil rights and social justice.
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