Kelly Brown Douglas is dean of the Union Theological Seminary’s Episcopal Divinity School in New York City. She also serves as a canon theologian at Washington Cathedral. She is one of the first Black female Episcopal priests in the United States and the first Black person to head an Episcopal Church-affiliated educational institution.
Lou Avotri has been promoted to associate vice president and executive director of student success at Talladega College in Alabama. Jared Russell has been named associate dean for academic and faculty affairs at Auburn University in Alabama and M. Ray McKinnie has been selected to lead Cooperative Extension at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
Jerrilyn McGregory, a professor of English at Florida State University, was honored for her book on Boxing Day traditions in the Anglicized Caribbean world, which encompasses the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, St. Croix, and St. Kitts.
Chandra L. Ford has joined the faculty at Emory University in Atlanta after teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles and Fredrick Muyia Nafukho, who has taught at Texas A&M University since 2007, will be joining the faculty and serving as vice provost in the Office of Academic Personnel at the University of Washington.
Taking on new administrative roles are James Flowers at Tacoma Community College in Washington, Tasha Bibb at the Mississippi State University Office of Technology Management in Vicksburg, Trey Jones at West Virginia State University in Institute, Nicole Johnson at Rhodes College in Memphis, and Dominique Harrison at North Carolina A&T State University.
The Arlt Award from the Council of Graduate Schools recognizes a young scholar-teacher who has written a book deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. Dr. Booker is the 52nd winner of the award.
Taking on diversity assignments are Sofiya Alhassan at the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Jacquez Gray for the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety, and Keona Lewis in the provost’s office at the University of Notre Dame.
La Marr Jurelle Bruce is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. According to the Modern L:anguage Association selection committee’s citation, “Bruce develops original and provocative readings across media and genres, and the impact of his work will be felt in multiple fields and disciplines.”
The four new faculty members in the College of Education & Human Development at Georgia State University are Bobby Bonwenyue Gueh and Tamika P. La Salle in the department of counseling and psychological services, Dionne Cowan in the department of educational policy studies, and Christopher Jett in the department of middle and secondary education.
Nance, the Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the school, is serving as dean of the school for a second time. She joined the faculty in 1994 and served as dean from 2006 to 2011. She was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as dean in the school’s then-82-year history. In July 2022, she was named dean for the second time.
Alicia Dorn was named chief of staff to the chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Charles B.W. Prince is the new transformation and sustainability officer at Dillard University in New Orleans and Christianne Malone was appointed assistant vice president for economic development at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Edith Renfrow Smith was the only Black student on campus when she graduated with a degree in psychology in 1937. Now 108 years old, Renfrow Smith is the oldest living graduate of the college.
The four Black faculty members who have been appointed to new roles are Sylvester Johnson at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, LaQuandra Nesbitt in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at George Washington University, Lorgia García Peña at Princeton University in New Jersey, and Kyaien Conner at the University of Pittsburgh.
Rita Dove, the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, received the 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for lifetime achievement from the Library of Congress. Professor Dove has published 11 collections of poetry. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 and won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987.
Taking on new administrative roles are William Broussard at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Angela Griffin at Wilmington College in Ohio, Anthony Brooks at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, Yogananda Pittman at the University of California, Berkeley, and Kenyatta N. Shamburger at Talladega College in Alabama.
Alyn Goodson was given the added duties of chief of staff to the chancellor of Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. Lauretta Hill will lead the Department of Public Safety at the University of Southern California and Deidra Harris-Lumpkins has been appointed associate vice chancellor for human resources at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Dr. Joseph’s research stems from her own experience growing up feeling alone as a Black girl in a mathematics class where other students didn’t look like her. Her experiences shaped her drive to tell the stories of Black girls and women and how they differ from their White girl and Black male counterparts.
Taking on new duties relating to diversity are Rashanda Booker at Fresno State University in California, Kenny Emmanuel Yarbrough at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Elwood Watson of East Tennessee State University.
The School of Education and the Graduate School will be renamed to honor African Americans students who broke racial barriers at the university. The Design Building is being renamed for the university’s first Black professor.
Shawn Ginwright has been named professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Grant Warner will serve as the inaugural Bank of America Endowed Professor of Entrepreneurship and director of the Center for Black Entrepreneurship at Spelman College and Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Taking on new administrative duties are Jerel Drew at Clark Atlanta University, Stephanie Rogers at Dillard University in New Orleans, and April Robinson was appointed executive director of human resources at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Joe T. Darden, Professor Emeritus in the department of geography, environment, and spatial sciences at Michigan State University, has been selected to receive the seventh Van Cleef Memorial Medal from the American Geographical Society for his distinguished work “in the field of urban geography.”
Taking on new diversity roles are Jay Pearson at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Dan’Talisha Deans for the Division of Philanthropic and Alumni Engagement at the University of Pittsburgh, and Gina Dent for the Humanities Division at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Taking on new administrative duties are Shawn Turner at Michigan State University, Stephanie Hawkes at Wayne State University in Detroit, Larry D. Terry II at Pennsylvania State University, and Ashley Holloway at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina.
Braxton Shelley, an associate professor of music and sacred music at Yale Divinity School, has won four awards for his book Healing for the Soul: Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination. The book uses the work of renowned gospel musician Richard Smallwood to explore the significance of vamp (a recurring musical phrase or chord progression) in Black gospel tradition and its potent and transformative spiritual power.
Taking on new administrative roles relating to diversity are Cynthia Pickett at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Monroe France at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and Tracie Ransom at Tulane Law School in New Orleans.
Makeda Best, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums, recently received the prestigious Photography Catalogue of the Year award at the 2022 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards. Dr. Best was honored for her 2021 publication Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970.
John Keene is a Distinguished Professor and chair of Africana studies at Rutgers University Newark. He also is a professor of English and teaches in the master of fine arts program in creative writing. Professor Keene was honored for his 234-page collection entitled Punks: New & Selected Poems.
Juanita Johnson-Bailey was named the first recipient of the Centennial Professorship, an endowed professorship for a women’s studies faculty member at the University of Georgia. Siddig Fageir has been appointed chair of the department of social sciences at Alcorn State University in Mississippi and Asher Pimpleton-Gray was named chair of the department of psychology and counseling at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
Alexis Travis is an assistant provost and executive director of the Health and Wellbeing Division at Michigan State University. Toni Monette is the new coordinator for volunteer and civic engagement programs at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Lori White was named director of purchasing for business affairs at Virginia Union University in Richmond.
Daphne Brooks, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Music at Yale University, was presented with the Music in American Culture Award from the American Musicological Society.
Randi Congleton was appointed chief diversity and inclusion officer at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, and David E. Jones is the new chief diversity officer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.
Associate professor of English Adrienne Brown has been appointed director of the University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life initiative. Bobby Donaldson is the inaugural holder of an endowed chair at the University of South Carolina, and Lisa T. Alexander was named the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Professor at the Boston College School of Law.
Taking on new administrative duties are Damon R. Wade at William Peace University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Sherrie Johnson at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland, Donte McFadden at the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York System, and Ahyana King at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
Zebadiah Hall will be the first full-time vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Wyoming. Sandra Mitchell will become the inaugural senior diversity officer at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and Nicole Arleane Roberson is the new vice chancellor of diversity, equity, and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Saddiq Dzukogi, an assistant professor of English at Mississippi State University, is the winner of the third annual Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. The prize is presented to a living poet who is not a U.S. citizen for a full-length book of poems published in the previous year.
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