Contact: Maya Matthews Minter
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Phone: 703.385.2411
FAIRFAX, Va. — Diverse: Issues In Higher Education is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Dr. John Hope Franklin Award.
Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, one of the nation’s most prominent historians, is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She has been a tenured faculty member at Harvard since 1993, and chaired the Department of African and African Americans Studies from 2006-2013. Last year she made history as the first African American appointed to lead Harvard’s history department. During her illustrious career she has demonstrated unwavering commitment to teaching and increasing the number of Ph.D.’s who will follow in her footsteps. In 2016 she became the National President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and has also taught on the faculties of Dartmouth College, the University of Maryland and the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Michael T. Nettles is nationally recognized as a top policy researcher on educational assessment, student performance and achievement and educational equity. In August 2014 President Barack Obama appointed Nettles to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He was also appointed by two U.S. Secretaries of Education to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which oversees and develops policies for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Currently he is Senior Vice President and the Edmund W. Gordon Chair of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Policy Evaluation & Research Center (PERC). He sits on numerous boards and for several decades he has served the education community tirelessly in efforts to close achievement gaps and improve educational opportunities for minorities.
About this Award:
The Dr. John Hope Franklin Award was created in 2004 to pay tribute to Dr. Franklin, historian, writer, educator and humanitarian who made significant contributions to shaping the perspective of American history in the 20th century.
With the late Dr. Franklin’s permission, Diverse created the award to institutionalize and celebrate his scholarly contributions to the nation on an ongoing basis. The individuals and organizations chosen are those whose contributions to higher education are consistent with the highest standards of excellence.
Past recipients have included Dr. Clifton Wharton, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Maya Angelou, the late Dr. William Friday and Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, just to name a few.
Award Presentation:
