WASHINGTON, June 27,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Fielding Graduate University
will honor an educational innovator, inclusion advocate, and
visionary leader in the nation's capital in July.
Ronald Mason Jr., JD, former
president of the University of the District of
Columbia (UDC), will be awarded this year's Marie Fielder
Medal for Social Transformation. The award ceremony will take place
during Fielding's convocation on July
10 at 4 p.m. ET at UDC's
Theater of the Arts (1400 K St., NW,
Washington, D.C. 20005).
Mason, who began his tenure at UDC in 2015, was the university's
ninth and longest-serving president. He stepped down on
June 30, 2023, after leading the only
public university in the nation's capital and the only exclusively
urban land-grant institution in the
United States. UDC is Mason's third presidential
appointment.
While at the helm of UDC, Mason partnered with Fielding's
President Katrina S. Rogers, Ph.D.,
to offer the UDC-Fielding Urban Leadership and Entrepreneurship
doctoral program, which launched in 2019. The first student cohort
graduated in 2023. While the leadership studies and urban studies
fields have made significant strides in recent decades, they have
been mostly male-centric, white-dominated, and limited to narrowly
focused topics like urban transportation, urban education, and
urban planning. The partnered urban leadership and entrepreneurship
doctoral program at UDC-Fielding seeks to produce a new generation
of scholars and practitioners. Its first cohort graduated in
2023.
"I am humbled to receive this year's Marie Fielder Medal. It's a
prestigious honor," said Mason, who recalled previous awardees and
those in the Fielding community "who believed in a moral universe
and made it their responsibility to fight for justice both inside
and outside of the academy." He said Orlando L. Taylor, Ph.D., the former director of
the Marie Fielder Center, and Fielding President Katrina S. Rogers, Ph.D., are among them. "I am
grateful that my contribution to the cause allows me to be counted
among their number."
The Marie Fielder Medal for Social Transformation is an annual
signature award bestowed by the Marie Fielder Center for Democracy,
Leadership, and Social Innovation. This award recognizes an
individual for a lifetime of achievements devoted to efforts
supporting educational access and success.
"We are honored to have President Mason accept the Fielder Medal
in recognition of his career devoted to HBCUs and their students,"
said Katherine McGraw, Ph.D.,
Director of the Marie Fielder Center for Democracy, Leadership, and
Education. "His leadership at Jackson
State University and the University of
the District of Columbia has ensured opportunities for
countless African American students to access and thrive in higher
education. Nothing could be more appropriate to the mission of
the Marie Fielder Center to advance social and educational justice
and inclusion."
Past recipients of the Marie Fielder Medal for Social
Transformation include Dr. Orlando L.
Taylor, former Distinguished Senior Advisor to Fielding's
President and former Executive Director of the National Science
Foundation-funded Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership
(CASL); Dr. Walter Bumphus,
President of the American Association for Community Colleges; Dr.
Gary Orfield, Co-Director of the
Civil Rights Project at UCLA; Dr.
Patricia Gurin, Nancy Cantor, Distinguished University Professor
Emerita of Psychology and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan; American labor leader
Dolores Huerta; and Professor
Angela Davis, social justice
activist, writer and scholar.
The award ceremony and graduation convocation will also be
live-streamed on Fielding's YouTube Channel:
fielding.edu/YouTube.
Journalists are invited to cover the Marie Fielder Medal
presentation, which will:
- Feature remarks from Ronald Mason
Jr., JD, this year's awardee, and Katherine McGraw, Ph.D., Marie Fielder Center
Director
- Fielding's convocation and graduate toast
Speakers will be available for interviews.
To learn more about the event, please visit
fielding.edu/fielding-to-honor-2024-marie-fielder-medal-for-social-transformation-recipient-ronald-mason-jr-j-d.
To learn more about Fielding's 50th Anniversary, visit
50.fielding.edu.
For 50 years, Fielding Graduate
University has been educating leaders in pursuit of a
more just and sustainable world. An accredited nonprofit leader in
transformative education, our School of Leadership Studies and
School of Psychology combine face‐to‐face and online learning,
delivering a personalized graduate education that fosters
individual development, community collaboration and societal
engagement.
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SOURCE Fielding Graduate University