Skip to main content

Recognition Roundup

The College of Liberal Arts is known for having highly-regarded faculty members and students. Here, we compiled just a few of the recent recognitions from the 2022 spring semester.

Accountability, Climate and Equity (ACE) Awards

Congratulations to the 2022 Accountability, Climate and Equity (ACE) Award recipients! The recipients will be recognized and celebrated during the 2022 ACE Awards Ceremony, for their demonstrated commitment to our core value of Respect, promoting the respectful treatment of others, affirming and encouraging individuals to take pride in their social and cultural identities, and including all in their definition of the “Aggie Family.” 

2022 ACE Award Recipients from the College of Liberal Arts:

  • Aggie Allies Rainbow Award: Kaileigh Roan
  • Phyllis R. Frye Advocacy Award: Rebecca Hankins
  • Stand Up Award – Student: Bentyl Hagler

The ACE Awards are sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, Office for Diversity, Department of Multicultural Services, Disability Resources, Women’s Resource Center, Aggie Allies, LGBTQ+ Pride Center, Health Promotion, Student Government Association Diversity Commission, and Campus Ministry Association.

Please visit ACE Awards page for details about the award categories and previous winners. 

Book Awards

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) awarded the Department of History’s Stephen Reigg the Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies for his  2020 monograph, Russia’s Entangled Embrace: The Tsarist Empire and the Armenians, 1801–1904. This award by the NAASR, as Reigg notes in his acceptance, “is a model of how to bridge the gap between the public and academe.” It is the second book award for Russia’s Entangled Embrace.

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) announced that Lorien Foote from the Department of History is the recipient of the OAH’s 2022 Civil War and Reconstruction Book Award, which is given annually for the most original book on the coming of the Civil War, the Civil War years, or the Era of Reconstruction. Foote’s book, Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press), sharpens our focus on a military and legal concept that suffused Civil War tactics and combat but has long been overlooked by historians.

The Department of History’s Sonia Hernández won the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award for her monograph, For a Just and Better World:  Engendering Anarchism in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900–1938. Sponsored by Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations in collaboration with the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), this prize honors the late Philip Taft, one of the foremost historians of the American labor movement, particularly the American Federation of Labor. 

Book Release

Felipe Hinojosa’s co-edited collection Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 with NYU Press was released in February.  Faith and Power compellingly argues that religious politics are central to social movements in the twentieth-century U.S. These essays explore several different Latina/o faith communities and their activism through immigration, refugee policies, de-industrialization, the rise of the religious left and right, as well as through various preexisting social justice movements. In addition to co-authoring the historiographical introduction, Hinojosa, from the Department of History, also contributes a chapter, “From the Fields to the Cities:  The Rise of Latina/o Religious Politics in the Era of Civil Rights.”

Board Membership

Claire Katz, from the Department of Philosophy, has been elected to a two-year term on the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) board. According to their website, NHA “is a nationwide coalition of organizations advocating for the humanities on campuses, in communities, and on Capitol Hill. Founded in 1981, NHA is supported by over 200 member organizations, including: colleges, universities, libraries, museums, cultural organizations, state humanities councils, and scholarly, professional, and higher education associations. It is the only organization that brings together the U.S. humanities community as a whole.”

Dissertation Award

Recently graduated doctoral student Tiffany Jasmin González, who is currently a tenure-track assistant professor in the History Department of James Madison University, won the Lerner-Scott Prize for Best Doctoral Dissertation in U.S. History for “Representation for a Change: Women in Government and the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement in Texas.” The prize committee conveyed their assessment that this “brilliantly researched and meticulously considered dissertation” boasting of a rich and varied trove of sources uncovers “the evolving ways Latinas strategized for the recruitment of more women to participate in public life, build networks, as well as create and engage in interracial and ethnic coalitions.” González was a former student of Sonia Hernández.

Distinguished Achievement Awards

Texas A&M University and The Association of Former Students have selected 24 outstanding faculty and staff to be honored with the 2022 university level Distinguished Achievement Awards. Since 1955 the Distinguished Achievement Awards have been awarded to those who exhibit the highest standards of excellence at Texas A&M.

The Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award honors Texas A&M faculty and staff members in the categories of teaching, research, individual student engagement, graduate mentoring, administration, staff, and extension/outreach/continuing education/professional development.

The selection process for this award is rigorous, with the recipients chosen by a campus-wide committee composed of faculty, staff, students, and former students. The award is a testimony to the esteem in which colleagues hold the recipients.

In recognition of their achievements, each recipient will receive a cash gift, an engraved watch, and a commemorative plaque.

The 2022 awardees from the College of Liberal Arts are:

Individual Student Engagement

Teaching

Distinguished Graduate Students

The Graduate and Professional School and The Association of Former Students have recognized 18 Aggies as Distinguished Graduate Students for 2022. The Distinguished Graduate Student Award represents one of Texas A&M’s highest honors for outstanding achievements by graduate students in research or teaching. 

“Since 1965, The Association of Former Students has proudly recognized the achievements and admirable contributions of Texas A&M graduate students with the Distinguished Graduate Student Award,” said Porter S. Garner III ’79, President and CEO of The Association of Former Students. “As teachers and researchers, the demonstrated excellence of this year’s honorees brings prestige to our university, embodies our Aggie Core Values, and reflects honorably upon the entire Aggie Network.”

Karen Butler-Purry, Associate Provost and Dean of the Texas A&M Graduate and Professional School thanked the Association of Former Students for supporting the Distinguished Graduate Student Awards: “Graduate students do so much to enhance the intellectual spirit of our university, contribute to our research and teaching missions, and advance scholarship in their fields of study. I am grateful to The Association of Former Students for their support in helping us recognize 18 of our most exemplary graduate students this year,” Butler-Purry said.

Awardees were presented with an engraved watch and a framed certificate at a ceremony in Rudder Forum on April 25. 

The 2022 Distinguished Graduate Student award recipients from the College of Liberal Arts, along with their departments and faculty advisors are as follows:

Teaching Awards

 History Grant

Sonia Hernández just won an American Historical Association (AHA)-National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant of $71,000  to convert the award-winning Life & Death on the Border, 1910-1920 exhibit at the Bullock Museum for travel across different parts of the state coinciding with the bi-centennial of the founding of the Texas Ranger Force. The Houston Holocaust Museum, the Special Collections library at Texas A&M International in Laredo, and the Dallas Latino Cultural Center have already expressed interest in hosting it. This exhibit presents a more historically accurate account of the Ranger force and its abuse of power as well as the ways in which Tejanos responded to violence. This is part of the AHA’s initiative to “sustain and advance the work of historical organizations,” and Hernández, on behalf of her Refusing to Forget team, was the PI. 

Provost Academic Professional Track Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards

Ten Texas A&M University faculty were selected for the 2021-2022 Provost Academic Professional Track Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, and three are from the College of Liberal Arts. This award encourages, recognizes, and rewards faculty who provide students with meaningful learning experiences, embrace effective teaching approaches, and value student-centered learning.

The 2022 recipients from liberal arts are:

Recipients of this award will receive a $5,000 bursary to support teaching innovations and teaching-related projects and activities.

For more information about this teaching excellence award, click here.