Outreach Prize
2006 Prize for Scholarly Outreach
At the enthusiastic recommendation of the Outreach Prize Committee, the Board of Directors of the American Philological Association awards the Association's 2006 Prize for Scholarly Outreach to Professor Michele V. Ronnick of Wayne State University. The Committee reviewed several deserving nominations but was most impressed by Professor RonnickÕs outreach efforts, particularly her Harvard-funded traveling photo installation 12 Black Classicists and her book entitled The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: an American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship (published by Wayne State Univ. Press, 2004). These works reached out beyond the field of Classics to the wider community, most notably people of color.
Funded by the James Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard U., the photo installation (http://12blackclassicists.com/) has been exhibited in more than 30 libraries and academic institutions throughout the United States and viewed by thousands of academics and non-academics of all races calling much attention and honor to African-American classicists of the 19th century . The exhibit has been featured and reviewed in more than 30 journals and radio programs (http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/mvr/black_classicists/media.html) including Arion (2004), Ebony (April 2005), The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 2005), Choice (September, 2005) and many other publications. Professor Ronnick deserves special credit for disseminating so much information about the third Black member of the APA and the first Black member of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and for offering scholars and the general public an enlightening look at the Black experience in the Academy through her work on the life of WilliamScarborough. It is no coincidence that the Modern Language Association created a book award in ScarboroughÕs honor as a result of Michele RonnickÕs earlier work.