Dr. Andrew W. Kahrl is conducting research on how tax liens and tax sales became a tool used by predatory land speculators to acquire Black-owned land. Dr. Kahrl discovered that local officials assessed Black property owners at highly inflated rates in an effort to tax them off the land.
Here is this week’s roundup of African Americans who have been appointed to new administrative positions at colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, was honored by the U.S. Presidential Scholars Foundation and DiOnetta Jones Crayton, associate dean for undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received an award from the Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network.
Since 2006, Dr. Michele C. Murray has been vice president for the Division of Student Development at Seattle University in Washington State. Earlier, she held student affairs posts at Loyola University Maryland and the University of Vermont.
Peyton Skipwith, a former slave who quarried stone for some of the early structures on the Charlottesville campus, was owned by John Hartwell Cocke, one of the first members of the university’s board of visitors.
Teachers who expect a lot of their students academically, lead a very well-organized classroom, and make students feel supported in their efforts are the ones that produce the most success from their African American students.
Julian Bond, the noted civil rights leader, legislator, author, NAACP chair, and long-time faculty member at the University of Virginia who died in 2015, was the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The goal of the clinic is to bring cases that have the potential to provide real and concrete relief to large groups of people who have been harmed by discrimination or deprivation of protected rights.
Valerie Smith, president of the highly rated Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, was the recipient of an honorary doctor of letters degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. Dr. Smith was honored for her work on diversity, inclusion, and curricular innovation during her first year as president of the Swarthmore.
Researchers at the University of Virginia, Rutgers University and the University of British Columbia have a published a study that shows that teachers who change instruction practices can impact the large racial gap in school discipline.
The University of Virginia recently held a meeting aimed at getting input from local residents in the Charlottesville area for their views on a proposed memorial to the Black slaves and laborers who helped construct early buildings on the university’s campus.
Debra Saunders-White, the 11th chancellor of North Carolina Central University in Durham, died on November 26. Dr. Saunders-White was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015 and took a medical leave of absence in August 2016.
Professor Bond, who was a civil rights pioneer and led the NAACP for 12 years, taught at the University of Virginia for 20 years. He was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and served in the Georgia State legislature for 20 years.
A new study by researchers at the University of Virginia’s Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning suggests that the racial or ethnic heritage of the teachers in the front of pre-kindergarten classrooms can make a big difference in the performance of students.
A group of American and African scholars are working together to restore the home of Madame Anna Colas Pepin on Goree Island just off the coast of Senegal. A professor at the University of Virginia is one of the international scholars involved in the project.
In 1978, Professor McPherson was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Appointed to new positions are James Mack at the University of Cincinnati, Edwin Kwane Otu at the University of Virginia, J’Aime Jennings of the University of Louisville, and Sherman Henry at the University of Oregon.
African American faculty members taking on new roles are Kali Nicole Gross at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, La Marr Jurelle Bruce of the University of Maryland, College Park, Jennifer Hamer of the University of Kansas, and Talitha LeFlouria at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Gavins joined the faculty at Duke in 1970. He was the first African American to join the faculty of Duke’s history department. Dr. Gavins was promoted to associate professor in 1977 and to full professor in 1992.
Past studies have demonstrated that Black patients tended to be undertreated for pain relative to White patients. A new study by researchers at the University of Virginia has found that this undertreatment may be caused, in part, by racial bias.
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy currently serves as vice provost for faculty affairs and a professor of counseling and human development at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She will begin her new job in July.
Here is this week’s roundup of Black faculty members from colleges and universities throughout the United States who have been appointed to new positions.
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.
Grace E. Harris has retired as a distinguished professor of public policy at the leadership institute that bears her name at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Her service included terms as dean of the School of Social Work, provost, and acting president.
The data shows that the number of Black applicants to U.S. dental schools has declined by 7.5 percent over the past four years. In 2014, Blacks were 4.3 percent of all new students enrolling in U.S. dental schools. This is down slightly from recent years.
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, is seeking to expand the scope of the institute from one dealing mostly with the humanities to a large number of academic disciplines.
The scholars in new teaching roles ate Carolyn Barnes at Duke University, Tondra-Loder-Jackson at the University of Alabama Birmingham, H. Shellae Versey at Wesleyan University, Kisha Lashley at the University of Virginia, and Vanessa Tyson at Scripps College.
The Office of African American Affairs at the University of Virginia has begun a new “strategic leadership” initiative as part of its Cornerstone Plan of academic advising, career advising, coaching, and networking with alumni.
Safiya Sinclair is currently a Dornsife Doctoral Fellow in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. She is a graduate of Bennington College in southwestern Vermont and holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Virginia.
The Stone Award was established in 2011 to highlight the work of the creative writing program at Oregon State University’s School of Writing. Literature, and Film. The award comes with a $20,000 prize. Professor Dove, the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, will accept the award next spring in Oregon.
The Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative seeks to encourage students from underrepresented minority groups to pursue graduate studies in the humanities, education, and social sciences.
Julian Bond, a legendary civil rights leader, legislator, and longtime professor at the University of Virginia, died on August 15 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. He was 75 years old.
A new consortium of 12 colleges and universities in Virginia recently held its first meeting to discuss how the educational institutions have dealt with and will deal with the issue of slavery.
Sinclair, a native of Montego Bay, Jamaica, is a graduate of Bennington College in southwestern Vermont and holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Virginia. She is currently a Dornsife Doctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California.
Billy K. Cannaday Jr., dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at the University of Virginia, and Amelia Ross-Hammond, a professor and director of service-learning and civic engagement at Norfolk State University, are retiring.
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