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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marlese Durr Honored For Her Scholarship and Diversity Efforts in the Discipline of Sociology
Marlese Durr, professor of sociology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, was honored with the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association. Dr. Durr has taught at Wright State University for 28 years. Her research and publications largely focus on African American women and managerial and labor markets in the public sector.
Florida State Dance Professor Honored by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the Lawton and Nancy Smith Fichter Professor in the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University, received the Award of Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
Emery N. Brown Selected to Share the Gruber Neuroscience Prize
Awarded annually by the Gruber Foundation, the prize honors scientists for major discoveries that have advanced the understanding of the nervous system. The prize, which includes a $500,000 award, will be presented to Dr. Brown and his co-recipients on November 13 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Salamishah Tillet of Rutgers University-Newark Wins the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
Salamishah Tillet, the Henry Rutgers Professor of Creative Writing and African American and African Studies, is being honored for her commentaries in The New York Times on "Black stories in art and popular culture - work that successfully bridges academic and nonacademic critical discourse."
Vicki Crawford of Morehouse College Awarded France’s Legion of Honor
Vicki Crawford, an associate professor of African American studies and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was honored for her academic work as well as her efforts to spread the teachings and the philosophy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Spelman College Awards Outgoing President by Naming a New Building in Her Honor
Spelman College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in Atlanta, announced that it will name the new 84,000-square-foot Center for Innovation & the Arts in honor of Mary Schmidt Campbell, the tenth president of the college, who is stepping down from her post.
Rosephanye Powell Wins the Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award From Harvard University
Professor Powell teaches applied voice, art song literature and vocal pedagogy at Auburn University in Alabama. She also serves as the Women’s Chorus conductor and the Auburn University Gospel Choir’s co-conductor.
Two African Americans Among the Eight Winners of the 2022 Windham-Campbell Prizes
Administered by Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the awards are conferred annually to eight authors writing in English anywhere in the world. Two of this year's winners are African American women with ties to the academic world.
American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Honors Emery N. Brown
Emery N. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Health Sciences and Technology in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT and the Warren M. Zapol Professor at Harvard Medical School.
Long-Time Clemson University Executive Honored for Her Recent Doctoral Dissertation
Altheia Richardson, assistant vice president for strategic diversity leadership at Clemson University in South Carolina, has received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. The award recognizes a completed dissertation that has contributed substantially to the literature and the field of diversity and inclusion in higher education.
Four Scholars Honored for Their Book on Educating African American Children
George Johnson of South Carolina State University, Gloria Boutte of the University of South Carolina, Joyce King of Georgia State University, and Lagarrett King of the University at Buffalo are being honored by the Society of Professors of Education.
E. Patrick Johnson Has Received the Frederick Douglass Medal From the University of Rochester
The Frederick Douglass Medal is a joint initiative of the Office of the President and the Frederick Douglass Institute established in 2008 at the University of Rochester to honor individuals of outstanding achievement whose scholarship and community engagement honor the legacy of Frederick Douglass. Dr. Johnson teaches at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Carnegie Mellon Univerity Professor Honored for Lifetime Achievement in Academic Engineering
Shawn Blanton, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, received the Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Academia from the National Society of Black Engineers. He is the founder and director of the Advanced Chip Test Laboratory at the university.
Brown University’s Glenn Loury Wins the $250,000 Bradley Prize
Glenn Loury is a professor of social sciences, economics, and international and public affairs at Brown University. The Bradley Prize is given to notable leaders whose accomplishments reflect the Bradley Foundation’s mission to restore, strengthen and protect the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism.
New Cornell University Fellowship Honors The First Black Student to Earn a Ph.D. in...
The Thomas Wyatt Turner Fellowship will support up to 10 graduate students from 1890 institutions, which are historically Black colleges and universities that are land-grant universities. They will spend the 2022-23 academic year on the Cornell University campus.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and author of five poetry collections, was the winner in the fiction category of the National Book Critics Circle Awards. She was honored for her novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.
Two African American Historians Win the $300,000 Dan David Prize
The Dan David Prize is the largest history prize in the world. It is awarded by the Dan David Foundation at Tel Aviv University in Israel to up to nine early and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines. The honor comes with a $300,000 prize. Kristina Richardson of Queens College-CUNY and Tyrone Freeman of IUPUI are among the winners.
The First Building on the Campus of the University of South Carolina Named for...
During the Reconstruction period, Celia Dial Saxon was one of the first African American students to attend South Carolina College, later the University of South Carolina. She taught school in Columbia, South Carolina for 57 years.
E. Patrick Johnson Wins the National Communication Association’s Highest Honor
E. Patrick Johnson, dean of the School of Communication and the Annenberg University Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, recently received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Communication Association. He has taught at Northwestern University for more than two decades.
Barbara Ransby Selected to Receive an Award From the Caribbean Philosophical Association
University of Illinois Chicago historian Barbara Ransby has been named a recipient of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award. She was selected for the award “because of the historical and political importance of her writings, her tireless work as an institution-builder and activist."
Sarah Price of Florida A&M University Recognized for Her Leadership in the Field of...
Sarah L. Price, associate dean for the College of Education at Florida A&M University, recently received the Jerry R. Thomas Distinguished Leadership Award from the American Kinesiology Association.
Emory University’s Carol Anderson to Receive the Gittler Prize from Brandeis University
The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize honors those who have made outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic, and religious relationships. The award and a $25,000 prize will be presented at a ceremony on the Brandeis campus this coming fall.
Nikky Finney Selected to Receive the 2022 Thomas Robinson Prize for Southern Literature
Nikky Finney, the John H. Bennett Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina, will be honored in April by the Spencer B. King Jr. Center for Southern Studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.
Cornell University Scholar Wins the Best Book Prize From the African Studies Association
Dr. Naminata Diabate is an associate professor of comparative literature at Cornell. The prize recognizes the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English and distributed in the United States during the preceding year.
Eastern Connecticut State University Names Science Building After Its Former President
Serving as president from 1988 to 2006, Dr. David G. Carter was the first African American to lead a four-year institution of higher education in Connecticut and also in New England. He later served as chancellor of the state university system.
Wright States’ Marlese Durr Honored for Her Work on Feminist Issues
Dr. Durr's research focuses on African American women in managerial positions in public institutions as well as specialized interests in labor markets, social networks, entrepreneurship, inner-city neighborhoods, and stressful life events for African American women.
Two Scholars on Reparations Share an American Book Festival Prize
William A. Darity Jr. of Duke Univerity and A. Kirsten Mullen have won the 2021 American Book Festival Best Book Award in the Social Change category for their book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.
Fayetteville State University Chancellor Honored for Supporting Military Veteran Students
Darrell T. Allison, chancellor of Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, was named the William Pearson Tolley Champion for Veterans in Higher education award winner by Student Veterans of America.
Kimberlé Crenshaw Receives the Top Honor From the Association of American Law Schools
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is the Promise Institute Professor of Human Rights at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia University. She was honored by the Association of American Law Schools for her work on critical race theory and intersectionality."
Morgan State University’s Wayne Dawkins Honored by the News Leader Association
Wayne Dawkins, professor of professional practice in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University, is the 2021 recipient of the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship. The award, given in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage students of color in the field of journalism.
Anita Allen Wins the APA’s Highest Honor for Service to Philosophy
Professor Allen is an internationally renowned expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. In 2018-19, she was the first Black woman to serve as president of the American Philosophical Association.
