Three Women Honored With Prestigious Awards

Patricia A. Edwards, Distinguished Professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, has been elected into the Reading Hall of Fame of the International Reading Association. Professor Edwards is only the second African American scholar to be elected into the Reading Hall of Fame, which has just over 100 living members.

Professor Edwards is the author of the award-winning book, Change Is Gonna Come: Transforming Literacy Education for African American Students. She is a graduate of Albany State University and holds a master’s degree from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

Shannon Frystak, an assistant professor of women’s and African American history at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, received the 2012 Glenn R. Conrad Prize from the Louisiana Historical Association for the best essay on Louisiana written over the past two years. She was honored for her chapter, “A Dissenting Tradition: Louisiana Women and the Black Struggle for Equality, 1924-1968,” which appeared in Louisiana Beyond Black and White: New Interpretations of Twentieth-Century Race and Race Relations (University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press).

Dr. Frystak is the author of the book, Our Minds on Freedom: Women and the Struggle for Black Equality in Louisiana, 1924-1967 (Louisiana State University Press). She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She holds a master’s degree from the University of New Orleans and a Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire.

Charline Barnes Rowland, an associate professor at West Virginia University was selected to receive the 2012 Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading award from the International Reading Association. She will receive the award in Chicago in April.

Dr. Rowland received a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She earned a master’s degree in reading education from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in English education and psychology from Syracuse University.