College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences

Heather Ann Thompson, a former UNC Charlotte faculty member, has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in history for Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy (Pantheon). Thompson, currently a professor at the University of Michigan, was a member of the UNC Charlotte History Department from 1997 to 2009.

For humanitarian contributions to the field of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, UNC Charlotte professor Steven Rogelberg has been named the inaugural recipient of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology Humanitarian Award.

Creating a scholarship is something Nan Wilson Wilkenfeld ‘14G has wanted to do for years. Scholarships helped her pay for her education, giving her access to new experiences, including traveling to a national conference as a graduate student. Thanks to her perseverance and generosity, the Nan Wilson Wilkenfeld Communication Studies Graduate Travel Scholarship was created in 2017.

Social sustainability has been defined as creating places that promote well-being by understanding what people need from the places they live and work. UNC Charlotte continues to support this effort through the annual Integrated Network for Social Sustainability conference, scheduled for Monday, June 5, through Wednesday, June 7.

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences alumna Tisha Greene, principal of the Oakhurst STEAM Academy, has received the 2017 Outstanding Administrator Award from the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center. Greene received a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in English education from UNC Charlotte.

UNC Charlotte has received a $76,521 grant to establish a watershed observatory that will document the impact of land use and invasive plant species on Catawba Watershed water quality and quantity, to guide the development of best conservation practices for uplands here and elsewhere. Dr. Martha Cary Eppes and Dr. David Vinson of the Department of Geography & Earth Sciences will oversee the watershed work, in partnership with North Carolina Plant Conservation Program and the Catawba Lands Conservancy.

With his Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship, Africana Studies faculty member Honoré Missihoun will research and teach texts from Francophone countries in Africa, as he explores how the exploitation of women, land and natural resources relates to patriarchal and male-dominated societies. Missihoun will conduct research at the University of Jos, Nigeria, focused on eco-feminism and eco-criticism in the environmental literature of Francophone Africa and the African Diaspora.

With her selection as UNC Charlotte’s first-ever Ertegun Graduate Scholar, UNC Charlotte’s Eileen Jakeway is headed to England’s University of Oxford, for what she anticipates will be one of the most intellectually rich and invigorating experiences of her life. Each year, only about 20 full-time graduate students in the Humanities are chosen from throughout the world to receive the scholarships.

In recognition of their exceptional teaching, Ashley Bryan, Nishi Bryska and Ian Marriott have received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2017. Dean Nancy A. Gutierrez and the awards committee chairs commended the honorees and award finalists for their innovation, creativity and focus on engaging students in scholarship and research.

Erica Cherian, a junior at UNC Charlotte who is devoted to addressing issues of healthcare access and utilization by Charlotte’s most vulnerable citizens, has been named a Newman Civic Fellow. Newman Civic Fellows are student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions to challenges that face their communities.