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March 30, 2009
Aldridge awards grow; celebrate more diversity

By Leslie King

Two new award categories and a big response to the faculty-staff honor marked this year’s Delores P. Aldridge Excellence Awards. The honors for outstanding student achievement in diversity were celebrated March 26 in the Dobbs University Center’s Winship Ballroom.

The two new awards inaugurated this year are Excellent Start for first-year students and Diversity Research for juniors and seniors.

The Excellent Start honorees are: Thomas Anderson; Geet Ketan Bhatt; Ruth Cano; Shikha Jerath; Amy Li; Brianna Mack; Jung Mi Park; and Willie Reaves.

For Diversity Research: Candice Merritt.

For Leadership and Service to a Diverse Community: Anish Shah; H. Justin Harlow; and Henrico Norris.
       
For Community Building, Diversity and Intergroup Relations:  Alok Tripathi; Yingxue (Rosie) Tang; Moi Li; and Ramone Williams; Scot Seitz. Second-year students and juniors and seniors are eligible for these two awards.

Winners of the Excellence in Faculty/Staff Mentoring award are, for staff: Andrea Neal, Center for Science Education; and Tingsen Xu,Tai Chi master, Department of Health, Physical Education and Dance, for faculty.

“This is the first year that an open call was offered for nominations for Excellence in Faculty/Staff Mentoring award,” said DeLa Sweeney, program development specialist in the Office of Multicultural Programming and Services (OMPS). “Because of the positive response from the Emory community, we selected one staff and one faculty honoree.”

Alexander Escobar from the biology department was the keynote speaker. Delores Aldridge, the first African American woman faculty member at Emory and founder of the African American  and African Studies programs, presented the Diversity Research award.

The awards, which recognize outstanding student achievement in the areas of leadership and service to a diverse community; community building, diversity and intergroup relations; and research about issues of diversity, are administered by OMPS and were inaugurated in 2003.