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The New York University Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award is sponsored by The Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Student Diversity Programs and Services (a division of Student Affairs), and the Center for Multicultural Education and Programs.. Its purpose is to recognize faculty members who exemplify the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. through their positive impact within the classroom and the greater NYU community. NYU students nominate faculty members who are considered and then chosen by the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award Committee.


2009


Christina Marin

Christina Marín is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Educational Theatre where she teaches courses in Applied Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Research Methodology, and Diversity. At NYU she also supervises the Master of Arts in Educational Theatre for Colleges and Communities. Her research interests include the employment of theatre pedagogy in Human Rights Education. She has published in national and international journals such as Gender Forum, Youth Theatre Journal, and STAGE of the Art. Her work has been presented at the annual conferences of the American Alliance for Theatre & Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, and Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed. She has worked in rural, private boarding schools; behavioral health & prevention agencies; urban institutions; after-school settings; group homes; national leadership conferences; and intergenerational programs, in which university students have worked side by side with her to facilitate workshops with high school students. She has also conducted workshops in Colombia, Ecuador, South Africa, Ireland, Singapore, and Mexico.


J. Ward Regan

J. Ward Regan has a Ph.D. in Labor and Cultural History. He teaches history and philosophy at New York University. He has been part of the New York Council for the Humanities Speakers in the Humanities Program since 2003. He has worked in off-Broadway theater and independent film in New York for twenty years. His one-man show, A Paranoid's Guide to History, recently concluded a successful run off-Broadway.He helped found and was the first president of UAW 7902, the union that representing part-time faculty at New York University and the New School University. He recently joined the Progressive Strategies Group, a New York based political consulting firm as its Director of Communications.


Walter Stafford (deceased)

Walter Stafford, (1940 - 2008) Professor of Public Policy and Planning, taught courses on public policy, economic development, human rights, and race and class. His research focused on race relations, race and planning, labor markets, gender issues, and economic development. His publications included Race, Gender and Welfare Reform: The Need for Targeted Support(State of Black America 2003), Women of Color in New York City: Still Invisible in Policy. Professor Stafford worked in the U.S. Senate, the National Urban League, and was a senior researcher with the Community Service Society of New York. Professor Stafford earned his Ph.D. in public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.


Ella Turenne

Ella Turenne is an artist, activist and educator. Her teaching and research interests include art and social change, the prison industrial complex, Caribbean arts and literature, theatre and media studies. She is currently an instructor in the Gallatin School's Community Learning Initiative and Director of Special Projects at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts where she develops initiatives in civic engagement and diversity. Her work has been published in various anthologies including Letters From Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees, which was nominated for a 2007 NAACP Image Award. She is also the editor of a volume of visual art and poetry commemorating the Haitian revolution entitled revolution|revolisyon|révolution 1804 - 2004: An Artistic Commemoration of the Haitian Revolution. Her most recent academic chapter on murals and prisons was published in Searching for America by Cambridge Scholars Press. As a filmmaker, Ella's work has been an official selection of various national film festivals as well as the Montreal International Haitian Film Festival where her short film woodshed was nominated for Best Short Film. She recently became a winner of the HBO Who's On Your Black List contest for her entry on Black women's' hair politics and journeys. As an activist, she is an advisory board member of the Blackout Arts Collective, a grassroots organization whose mission is to empower communities of color through arts, education and activism. With Blackout, Ella participated in Lyrics on Lockdown, a national tour where she performed and facilitated workshops educating communities about the prison industrial complex. She works with incarcerated youth and has developed arts based workshops with youth whose parents are or have been incarcerated. Ella also is a steering committee member of the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program. Ella has a BA in psychology from Stony Brook University and an MSW from Boston University.

2008


Yu Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of Dentistry

Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of Tisch School

Karen King, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education

Robert Leibson Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Social Work

Yaw Nyarko, Professor of Economics, and former Vice Provost for Globalization and Multicultural Affairs