Six Women Scholars Who Have Earned Prestigious Honors or Awards

Annemarie Vaccaro, an associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Rhode Island, has been selected to receive 2017 George D. Kuh Outstanding Contribution to Literature and/or Research Award from NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. She is being honored in March in San Antonio, Texas, for a lifetime commitment to research and scholarship in the field of student affairs.

Dr. Vaccaro is the co-author of three books including Centering Women of Color in Academic Counterspaces: A Critical Race Analysis of Teaching, Learning, and Classroom Dynamics (Lexington Books, 2016). She is a graduate of Castleton University in Vermont. Dr. Vaccaro holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver.

Hortense Spillers, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has been selected to receive the Nicolas Guillen Lifetime Achievement Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Dr. Spillers joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2006. She is the author of several books including Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

Professor Spillers is a graduate of the University of Memphis. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature and a professor of environmental studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for enhancing Germany’s standing abroad and its relations with other countries. Professor Winston has translated more than 35 books from German to English.

Dr. Winston is a graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree from Wesleyan University and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Ona Renner-Fahey, an associate professor of Russian at the University of Montana, received the 2016 Excellence in Teaching (Postsecondary) Award from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.

Dr. Renner-Fahey is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. She holds a master’s degree from Middlebury College in Vermont and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University.

Bettye M. Clark, who retired recently after 30 years on the mathematics faculty at Clark Atlanta University, has been recognized by the university by having the Graduate Resource Center on campus named in her honor. She is the founder of the center and also served as dean of graduate studies and interim provost.

Dr. Clark is a graduate of Fort Valley State University in Georgia. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Georgia and a doctorate from the University of Houston.

Melissa Luke, an associate professor of counseling and human services in the School of Education at Syracuse University in New York,  has been selected to receive the Thomas J. Sweeney Professional Leadership Award from Chi Sigma Iota, the international society of students, educators, and counselors.

Dr. Luke is a graduate of the University of Rochester. She earned master’s degrees at SUNY-Brockport and SUNY-Oswego and a Ph.D. in counselor education at Syracuse University.