The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. has launched the Marshall-Motley Scholars Program, which aims to support the education and training of 50 aspiring civil rights lawyers over the next 20 years. In return for a full scholarship, students must agree to practice civil rights law in the South for at least eight years.
Ruth Spencer, associate vice president for human resources at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, A.J. Range, assistant vice president of student development and enrollment services at the University of Central Florida, and Adrienne D. Davis, vice provost for faculty affairs and diversity at Washington University, are stepping down.
Taking on new roles are Mario Berry at Texas Southern University in Houston, Edward Pittman at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Maureen O. Stokes at Worcester State University in Massachusetts, and Natalie Pennywell at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
Carllos Lassiter has been serving as vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Rust College, a historically Black educational institution in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He will begin his new duties at Westminster College in July.
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.
The no-strings-attached award, given out by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, recognizes an institution’s accomplishments in enrollment, financial aid, academics and student support services for low-income students.
This year, 54 Truman scholars were selected from 775 candidates nominated by 305 colleges and universities. Of this year’s 54 Truman Scholars, it appears that nine, or 16.7 percent, are Black Americans.
Ada Ferrer, professor of history and professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies, will be awarded the $25,000 prize for the best book of the year on slavery or abolition that was written in the English language.
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.
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, is the inaugural winner of the $1 million Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence. Since 2008 the college has vastly increased its percentage of students from low-income families.
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is currently the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of Biography and chair of the department of African and African American studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Kiese Laymon is an associate professor of English at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The Saroyan Prize is given every two years by the Stanford University Libraries and the William Soroyan Foundation.
The scholarships will cover full tuition and other expenses for two women for four years of undergraduate study.
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