The Dr. John Hope Franklin Awards
About this award: In recognition of Dr. John Hope Franklin’s extraordinary career as a historian, scholar and social activist, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education each year presents an award in his name for individuals and organizations that have expanded access to and created opportunity in American higher education as well as produced exemplary scholarship and research.
2025 Winner
Past Winners
2023
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President Emeritus, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
2021
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President Emeritus, The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
View the Virtual Ceremony
2020
Dr. Walter Allen, Distinguished Professor of Education, Sociology, and African American Studies
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles
2019
Dr. Michael T. Nettles, Senior Vice President and Chair, Policy Evaluation & Research Center, Educational Testing Service (ETS)
Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Harvard University, History Department Chair, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies
2018
Dr. James Johnson Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University of Michigan
Dr. William R. Harvey, President, Hampton University
Dr. Darlene Clark Hine, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of History, Michigan State University
2017
U.S. Congressman John Lewis, Georgia’s 5th District, Civil Rights Activist
Dr. Samuel L. Myers, Sr., Founder, Minority Access, Inc., pioneering HBCU advocate
Dr. Wilma J. Roscoe, Board of Directors, Minority Access, Inc., pioneering HBCU advocate
2016
Dr. Rodolfo F. Acuña, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Northridge (CSUN)
2015
Dr. Belle Wheelan, President, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
2014
Dr. James Rosser, President Emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles
2013
Dr. John T. Casteen III, President Emeritus, The University of Virginia
Dr. Mary H. Futrell, President of the Americans, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Dr. William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University
2012
Dr. Robert A. Corrigan, President, San Francisco State University
Christopher Edley, Jr., Co-Founder, The Harvard Civil Rights Project
Dr. Gary Orfield, Co-Founder, The Harvard Civil Rights Project
2011
Marian Wright Edelman, President and Founder, Children’s Defense Fund
Dr. Edmund Gordon, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Yale University
2010
The Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB), State Doctoral Scholars Program
The Georgia Institute of Technology), College of Engineering
2009
Dr. Arturo Madrid, Professor of the Humanities, Trinity University
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2008
Dr. Norman C. Francis, President, Xavier University of Louisiana
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, Professor, Harvard School of Medicine
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, Chairman Emeritus, The Duke Endowment
2006
Dr. Maya Angelou, Professor Emeritus, Wake Forest University
Dr. James P. Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine
Dr. William C. Friday, President Emeritus, The University of North Carolina System
2005
Dr. Johnnetta B .Cole, Director, National Museum of African Art
Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr., Former Chairman and CEO, TIAA-CREF
2004
Dr. David Levering Lewis, Historian, New York University
Dr. Sybil Mobley, Dean Emeritus School of Business & Industry, Florida A & M University
Bill and Melinda Gates, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Latest
Page 1 of 4
Next Page