Excellence at Howard

Florence Maher, Kelly McCray and Justin P. Dunnavant were selected as 2009 Fulbright Scholars.

Pictured: Florence Maher, Kelly McCray and Justin P. Dunnavant

Photo by Justin D. Knight

Excellence at Howard

Florence Maher, Kelly McCray and Justin P. Dunnavant were selected as 2009 Fulbright Scholars. The awards are for one year of study and/or research that can be pursued in more than 140 countries. Maher is headed to Germany and will explore social integration on the German-Polish border. McCray will spend a year teaching in Thailand as part of the English Teaching Assistantship program. Dunnavant will travel to Jamaica to research African cultural retentions through archaeological data, with a goal of expanding understanding of the African experience in the Americas.

Photo by Kerry-Ann Hamilton

President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate William E. Spriggs, chair of the Department of Economics, as assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Labor. Spriggs recently served on the Agency Review Team for the Labor Department for the transition efforts of President Obama.

Jeanne Craig Sinkford, Ph.D., professor and dean emeritus of the College of Dentistry, has been appointed to the National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health. Sinkford, who currently serves as the associate executive director of the American Dental Association and director of the association’s Center for Equity and Diversity, is the first woman to be included in the U.S.A. Section of the International College of Dentists’ Chronicles of Outstanding Leaders in Dentistry, the first woman to be appointed dean of a dental school in the U.S. and for more than 20 years was the only female dean at Howard.

File Photo

Barron H. Harvey, Ph.D., C.P.A., dean of the School of Business, received the prestigious H. Naylor Fitzhugh Humanitarian Award. This honor is bestowed upon members of the National Alliance for Marketing Developers who have made significant contributions to marketing as it relates to business, community development and the education and well-being of youth.

Sonya T. Smith, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been selected to participate in the Women’s International Research Engineering Summit in Barcelona, Spain. The main objective of the summit, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is to enable research exchanges between female engineers from around the world while identifying issues faced by females pursuing careers in engineering that could benefit from a global strategy.

Pictured L-R: Lawrence Kaggwa and Jamisha Purdy
Photo by Justin D. Knight

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced that for the first time in the history of its special honors, a professor and student from the same institution will be honored with Journalism Educator of the Year and Student Journalist of the Year. Howard professor Lawrence Kaggwa and student Jamisha Purdy were named as the honorees at the NABJ spring board meeting in Tampa, and will be commended at the organization’s Hall of Fame Induction and Banquet on August 7.

School of Business students were awarded $50,000 in prizes at the annual Ford HBCU Business Classic in Atlanta. Lawrence E. Ball, a junior, won First Prize and was awarded $30,000, $10,000 of which goes to the University’s scholarship fund. Jomari Peterson, (M.B.A. ’09), won Second Prize and was awarded $20,000, $5,000 of which goes to the University.

Courtesy Photo
The University’s Parliamentary Debate Team made its debut and history by participating in “The Great Debate” exhibition with Yale University’s debate team to celebrate the NAACP’s 100th anniversary. Both universities debated whether access to high-quality education should be a constitutionally guaranteed right, and if financial institutions that engaged in predatory lending practices that discriminated against minorities should receive bailout money from the federal government. Both teams were awarded trophies for their outstanding performances. Howard’s debate team is part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Forensics Society, where Professor Tianna Y. Sousa-Johnson, J.D., serves as director. The debate team is coached primarily by Javaris Powell.

The University’s academic team advanced to the “Sweet 16” level at the 20th annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, in Orlando, Fl., and won a $5,000 grant. The University joined 63 other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a three-day tournament that tested students’ knowledge on a variety of topics. It is the only annual academic competition held between the nation’s HBCUs. This year’s team included William Whitted as captain, a senior business management major; Glenn Gex Jr., a freshman chemical engineering major; Kevin Moses, a freshman biology major; Anthony Pratcher II, a junior history major; and William Webb, a senior biology major. Coach Roberta McLeod, director of the Blackburn Center, accompanied the students.

With 24 of Howard students’ essays accepted, and possibly four more by its McNair Fellows, the University should have the largest number of published essays in the 2009 edition of the faculty refereed National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) Journal when it comes out in September. This would allow Howard to repeat for the second year in a row as the most published academic institution in the journal. The members of Howard’s 2009 NCUR team are: Mariah Jackson, Jessica Littles, Kathlyn Desravines, Simon Brown, Jarrell Carter, Moses Dixon, Jennifer Wright, Sade Bowen, Carmen Hills, Marcus Ware, Erica Lee, Yetunde Osun, Jovonsia Guidry, Yetunde Alabi, Brafi Adomako, Talon Hurst, Whitney Henry, Nnamdi Anozie, Elizabeth Tafete, Tariqua Morrisson, Phillip Clancy, Mileka Ackie, Chelsea Rasberry and Colleen Wedderburn.

William B. Lawson, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, becomes the second African-American president of the Washington Psychiatric Association (WPS) on May 22. WPS is the largest district branch of the American Psychiatric Association.

Photo by Ceasar

Afro Blue, the University’s vocal jazz ensemble, was named the college winner in downbeat magazine’s 32nd annual student music awards competition. The results will appear in the June 2009 issue. The group is under the direction of Professor Connaitre Miller.

Photo by Ceasar

For the second consecutive year, the Blackburn Center Gallery—under the leadership of Roberta McLeod—has been selected for the Best of Washington Award in the Art Galleries & Dealers category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA). In recognition of the achievement, a special 2009 Best of Washington Award has been designed for display in the Blackburn Center Gallery.

Photo by Justin D. Knight

Genee Robinson, a student majoring in Fashion Merchandising in the Division of Fine Arts of the College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded the competitive Reginald F. Lewis Scholar Prize. The $10,000 prize is awarded to the undergraduate student whose cumulative grade point average demonstrates the highest increase between the sophomore and senior years.