The American Council on Education recently completed its annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Several women were honored at the proceedings.
Johnnetta B. Cole, the former president of Spelman College in Atlanta and Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the current director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, was the recipient of the 2013 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award.
“In her 40 years in American higher education and current role at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Johnnetta Cole’s powerful work to promote racial and gender equity has been an example for us all,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad.
Dr. Cole is a graduate of Oberlin College. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University. She has received 55 honorary degrees. Among her books are Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President (1994), Dream the Boldest Dreams: And Other Lessons of Life (2001), and Gender Talk: The Struggle For Women’s Equality in African American Communities (2003), which she co-authored with Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a professor at Spelman College.
Juliet V. Garcia, president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, received the ACE Lifetime Achievement Award. President Garcia was named leader of the university in 1992 after serving for six years at president of Texas Southmost College. There she was the first Mexican-American women to be named president of a college or university in the United States.
President Garcia holds a Ph.D. in communications and linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Karen S. Haynes, president of California State University San Marcos, received the 2013 Donna Shavlik Award. The award is given to an educator with a sustained commitment to advancing women in higher education. Donna Shavlik was the long-time director of the ACE’s Office of Women in Higher Education, now known as the Inclusive Excellence Group.
Dr. Haynes is the co-author of the textbook Affecting Change: Social Workers in the Political Arena, now in its seventh edition. She is a graduate of Goucher College in Maryland and holds a master of social work degree from McGill University in Montreal and a doctorate in social work from the University of Texas at Austin.