SHEPHERDSTOWN – Assistant sociology professor Dr. Chiquita Howard-Bostic will be recognized as the first to receive the Storer College Faculty Award Tuesday, March 10, at 6 p.m. in the Storer Ballroom for incorporating diversity and social justice in her classroom.
The award, which includes $1,000 for professional development, was created to celebrate Storer College’s commitment to the education of people of color in the Eastern Panhandle.
Howard-Bostic was chosen out of five nominees by a committee including Dr. Thomas Segar, vice president for student affairs and chair of the diversity and equity committee, one academic dean, two faculty members, one graduate student and one undergraduate student. The nominees were scored on teaching, service and research.
Howard-Bostic is a second-year professor at Shepherd, and her courses are mainly centered on class, community, crime, gender and race. She earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo—her hometown—and a Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Storer College, which was founded in 1876 in Harpers Ferry by Freewill Baptist Church, saw over 7,000 students from around the world walk its halls until it closed in 1955 after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Brown v. Board of Education. The reasons for closure included desegregation, financial problems and racial anxieties.
To listen to Howard-Bostic’s interview about the award, visit www.shepherd.edu/wordpress-1/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/HowardBosticFINAL.mp3.