December 8, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RUTGERS PROFESSORS RECEIVE PRESTIGIOUS UNIVERSITY HONOR
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NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Three of Rutgers Universitys most distinguished faculty William Steven Barnett, professor of education; Cheryl Wall, professor of English; and Deborah Gray White, professor of history received one of the universitys highest honors today when they were named Board of Governors Professors.
We expect nothing less than excellence from our faculty, and strive to create an academic environment that cannot be matched, said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. Those honored today have exceeded even the extremely high standards expected of them and earned national, and in some cases international, distinction within their respective disciplines.
William Steven Barnett, who is also the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers Graduate School of Education, is nationally recognized for his focus on education economics and public policy. Barnett's extensive work, particularly his analyses of educational opportunities for children in low-income communities, is known for shaping public preschool education programs, including New Jersey's Abbott District programs, that prepare disadvantaged children ages 3 to 5 for school.
Barnett has published several works on education readiness for children, including Lives in the Balance: A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Perry Preschool Program through Age
27, Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty: Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Results, and The Head Start Debates.
Cheryl Wall has a long list of literary accomplishments. In addition to todays honor, Wall has served as the chair of Rutgers Department of English; authored books such as Worrying the Line and Women of the Harlem Renaissance; edited several publications including two volumes of writing by Zora Neale Hurston for the Library of Americas Novels and Short Stories collections; and served as co-principal of Reaffirming Action: Designs for Diversity in Higher Education, an initiative of Rutgers Institute for Womens Leadership funded by the Ford Foundation. She serves on the advisory boards of editors for the journals African-American Review, American Literature and Signs. Wall also has left an indelible mark on American literature as her expertise has helped shape and establish the African-American literary canon.
Deborah Gray White has authored several books, including Arnt I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South, which received the Letitia Brown Memorial Book Prize awarded by the Association of Black Women Historians; Too Heavy A Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves; and Let My People Go: African Americans 1804-1860. She also co-authored Our United States.
Whites commitment to African and African-American history and gender studies is illustrated in her work, including her research projects on mass marches, which evaluate the Million Man March, Million Woman March, the Million Mom March and the Promise Keepers march. The Black Atlantic: Race, Nation and Gender project, which traced the globalization of African culture and the formation of the Black Atlantic since the beginning of the modern slave trade, was conducted under Whites leadership as co-director of the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. White is currently working on an oral history initiative with the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.
Contact: Nicole Pride
732-932-7084, ext. 610
E-mail: npride@ur.rutgers.edu