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Selected Awards

• April 2006 Recipient of 5X����’s Diversity Leadership for Teaching/Research Award
• Dec. 2003 Recipient of Ohio Magazine’s Excellence in Education Award
• Oct. 2003 Recipient of Excellence in Teaching Award from the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education
• Fall 2002 Recipient of KSU’s Outstanding Teaching Award
• Spring 2001 Recipient of the Distinguished Honors Faculty Award
• April 1995 Named Outstanding Faculty Member at 5X���� by Black United Students

Selected Professional Activities

• Since 1993 - Coordinator of Communication Skills & Arts Division in the Department of Pan-African Studies, 5X����
• Since 1999 - Managing Editor (doing layout for and handling printing of) Black Theatre Network News, a publication of the national organization, Black Theatre Network (BTN)
• Summers 1996 through 2001 and 2008 - Instructor for the Student Multicultural Center’s STARS Program for new African American freshmen at 5X����
• Fall 2007 - Invited by the National Association of African American Studies to submit a paper, “Reclaiming Zion Christian Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee,” which was presented at its winter conference, as the featured article in its online journal, The Affiliate News. 
• 2005 - “Black Women/Black Literature” (interview), Readers of the Quilt: Essays on Being Black, Female, and Literate, Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Cresskill, N. J.: Hampton Press, Inc., 2005
• April 2005 - Invited to present “ Reclaiming Zion Christian Cemetery” as the closing session for “Life and Death in the African Diaspora: Homegoings, Crossings, and Passings” at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio
• February 2005 - Invited to speak on “Whites in Black History: A Choice of Legacies” by the Office of Equity and Diversity at Bowling Green State University as part of its Spring Affirmative Direction Series
• November 2003 - Presented “Teaching African American Literature: The Significance of the Historical Perspective” at the Midwest MLA Conference in Chicago
• Summer 2003 - Educational trip to Ghana with Molefi Asante, Afrocentric scholar at Temple University; presenter at conference (“Voices, Drums, and Spirits”) in Akosombo, Ghana: “Kofi Opoku’s Essay, ‘The West Through African Eyes’”
• 1999 through 2005 - College of Continuing Studies summer workshop: Integrating African American Literature into Middle and High School English Classes
• October 2002 - Speaker, Student Multicultural Center Soup & Substance Dialogue Series: “Being a White Woman in the Department of Pan-African Studies”
• October 2001 - Speaker, Student Multicultural Center “Soup & Substance Dialogue Series: The Importance of Understanding What Makes Us Westerners”
• April 2001 - Invited to be on a panel and conduct a workshop (Teaching Pan-African Literature from a Historical Perspective) at The National Sankofa Conference on Educating African American Children in Merrillville, Indiana
• November 2000 - Invited speaker (The Moral Imperatives of Literature) at a Symposium, Curriculum Diversity: The Imperatives of Literature and Culture for Human Development at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, Ohio
• Summer/Fall 1998 - Planning Committee for the Inaugural World Conference of the Black Expressive Culture Fall 1998 Studies Association on November 19-21 at 5X���� (keynote speaker: Chinua Achebe)
• Courses taught in Pan-African Studies: Recovering the Past: Kent to Memphis (see below), The Black Short Story, The Essay in the Pan-African World, African American Women’s Literature, Pan-African Women’s Literature, African American Masterpieces, The Legacy of Slavery in Literature, Oral and Written Discourses in Pan-African Studies, Pan-African Autobiography, Black Experience I