In 2020, Fellows from the Citizens & Scholars network continued the organization’s legacy of exceptional work in their areas of focus. In addition to winning major awards and accolades—including a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship—Fellows garnered praise for their books, earned prestigious fellowships, and won numerous professional honors.

Caleb McDaniel MN ’01 won the Pulitzer Prize in History for his book, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (Oxford University Press). The book chronicles the story of Henrietta Wood, a woman who was legally freed from slavery only to be sold back into slavery five years later, and her fight for justice. Dr. McDaniel is the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities, Professor of History, and Department Chair at Rice University. He has also received the Avery O. Craven Award and was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for Sweet Taste of Liberty.

Forrest Stuart CEF ’15 was named a 2020 MacArthur Fellow for his work “challenging long-held assumptions about the forces that shape urban poverty and violence and bringing to light the lived reality of those who experience it.” Dr. Stuart is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Stanford Ethnography Lab at Stanford University. His first book Down, Out, and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row (2016), examined the results of the first five years of the Safer Cities Initiative impact on Los Angele’s Skid Row. The book presents perspectives of both its residents and the police that show the pitfalls of modern policing on poverty. His most recent book, Ballad of the Bullet: Gangs, Drill Music, and the Power of Online Infamy (2020), explores how urban youth from Chicago’s South Side are using portrayals of gang violence to profit on social media.

Saidiya Hartman CN ’90 was appointed to the rank of University Professor, Columbia’s highest academic honor. The President of Columbia wrote: “Professor Hartman is a scholar of African American and American literature and cultural history whose immersive and unflinching portraits of Black life have forever altered the ways in which we think and speak about enslavement and its invidious legacy in this country.”

Mary Katherine “Katie” Jenner MBA ’16 has been appointed as the Indiana Secretary of Education. “Dr. Katie Jenner has focused her entire career on investing in students, teachers and staff, and she will continue to build the relationships needed to move our state forward in constructive ways,” said Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Noel Valis WF ’68 was appointed to the National Endowment for the Humanities’ National Council on the Humanities.

Scott E. Casper MN ’86 has been elected as president of the American Antiquarian Society, a national research library of American history and culture to 1876.

Carina Curto CEF ’12, professor of mathematics, has been selected as one of five recipients of the 2020 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement at Penn State University. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme.

Steven Denson PP ’90 was named Assistant Dean of Diversity at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.

Elena Victoria Ortiz WF ’64 was awarded the 2020 Sydney Taylor Honor for her young adult biography, Dissenter on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life and Work.

Kwesi Vincent TF ’19 was named a 2020 Knowles Teaching Fellow. The Knowles Teaching Fellows Program is an intensive and cohesive, five-year program that supports early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers in their efforts to develop teaching expertise and lead from the classroom.

Caitlynn Richardson TF ’15 received the Charlotte Boener Award for Innovative Middle School Science Teaching at the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Inc., conference in February.

Elizabeth Son CEF ’15 was recently named one of the inaugural recipients of the Mellon/ACLS Scholars & Society Fellowship. 

Reyhan Durmaz CN ’18 won the 2019 Joukowsky Family Foundation Outstanding Dissertation Award.

Mary Lou Mackey WF ’66, won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Small Press Award for her collection of poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018.

Sherry Lynn Hatcher WF ’65 was honored with a Fielding Graduate University endowed scholarship fund in her name. The Dr. Sherry L. Hatcher Honorary Scholarship Fund offers ongoing annual scholarships to support Fielding students.

Jessica Thomulka TF ’16 received the 2019 Koinonia Family Life Pinnacle Award for dedicated service in honor of Brother Elliot Johnson’s dedication to the Camden Dream Center. 

Beverly R. Voloshin WF ’71 will be a Fulbright Fellow at Al Quds University in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, spring semester 2020, teaching American Literature.

Amanda T. Boston TR ’15 was elected to serve on Brown University’s Board of Trustees.

Five Fellows from Citizens & Scholars programs were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020: Alondra Nelson CEF ’06, Daniel Porterfield MN ’89, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan CN ’92, Susan S. Wallace WF ’59, Adela Louise Yarbro Collins WF ’67.

Nine of this year’s Guggenheim Fellows are also Fellows from various Citizens & Scholars programs: Amy N. Burnett CN ’87, Sarah Buss MN ’83, Robert Ford Campany CN ’87, James T. Campbell CN ’86, Garth Richard Greenwell MN ’03, Susan M. Juster CN ’88, Vera Audrey Keller MN ’03, Bernadette A. Meyler MN ’95, and Kimberly K. Phillips-Fein MN ’98.

Four National Humanities Center 2020 Fellows are from the Citizens & Scholars network. Those Fellows are Alexis Pauline Gumbs MN ’04, Gregg Mitman CN ’86, Crystal R. Sanders MN ’05, MMUF TR ’08, and Molly Worthen MN ’05.

American Council of Learned Societies Fellows: Hannah Barker CN ’13, Nicole A. Burrowes CEF ’20, Elizabeth Ellis CEF ’20, Nell Gabiam CEF ’14, David L. Hoffmann MN ’83, Douglas Northrop MN ’91, Nicole Sackley MN ’96 CN ’02, Shelley Streeby MN ’87, and Lisa B. Thompson MN ’92.

Many of the Fellows supported and honored by these organizations come from “second generation” Citizens & Scholars programs—those that came after the original Woodrow Wilson Fellowships from 1945 to 1972. They include Career Enhancement Fellows (CEF), Andrew W. Mellon Fellows in Humanistic Studies (MN), and Newcombe Fellows (CN). This group of scholars represents today’s and tomorrow’s leaders in their fields. We are proud to have supported them at various stages of their careers.

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