Five Women Scholars Selected for Prestigious Awards

Dorsey Kendrick, president of Gateway Community College in New Haven, Connecticut, received the 2012 Liberty Bell Award presented by The Foundation of the New Haven County Bar. The award is given to individuals and organizations for outstanding service to the greater New Haven community.

Dr. Kendrick has been president at Gateway Community College since 1999. She is a graduate of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, where she was one of the first three Black students. President Kendrick holds a master’s degree from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a doctorate from Walden University.

Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, was selected to receive the 2012 Jay Malina Award from the Beacon Council. The award is given to executives who have made a significant contribution to the prosperity of the greater Miami metropolitan area. President Shalala will be presented with the award in April.

Dr. Shalala, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, has been president of the University of Miami since 2001. Prior to joining the Clinton administration, Dr. Shalala was president of Hunter College in New York City and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A graduate of Western College for Women, President Shalala earned a Ph.D. from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Susan R. Loepp, professor of mathematics at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has been selected to receive the 2012 Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America.

Professor Loepp is a graduate of Bethel College in Kansas. She holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Lesley M. Wheeler, the Henry S. Fox Jr. Professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, has been chosen for the 2012 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. She will receive her award in Richmond, later this month.

Professor Wheeler is a prize-winning poet who has taught at Washington and Lee since 1994. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and holds a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University.

Eugenia Weiss, clinical assistant professor at the School of Social Work of the University of Southern California, will receive the International Award for Excellence from the International Journal of Health, Wellness, and Society. Dr. Weiss will receive the award in Chicago this March. She was honored for her paper, “The Influence of Military Culture and Veteran Worldviews on Mental Health Treatment.”

Dr. Weiss is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles. She holds a master of social work degree from the University of Southern California and a doctorate in psychology from Alliant International University.