On Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, Wagner College held its annual MLK Agents of Change awards ceremony, which recognized five members of the college community for their commitment to furthering the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:
Faculty Award: Steven Thomas, Associate Professor, English Department
Staff Awards: Ruta Shah-Gordon, Vice President of Internationalization, Intercultural Affairs and Campus Life, and Jazzmine Clarke-Glover, Vice President of Workplace Culture and Inclusion, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Diversity Officer and Title IX Coordinator
Alumna Award: Kerri Lee Alexander ’15
Student Award: Jonathan Irizarry ’20, Graduate Student
The keynote speaker for the event was Rita Reynolds, associate professor and chairwoman of Wagner College’s History Department. Professor Reynolds earned her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in African American Studies and is a 19th and 20th century historian of African American and American history. She is director of the American Studies Program and faculty director of the Expanding Your Horizons study-abroad program at Wagner College. She is in final revisions on her manuscript with the University of Georgia Press, “Free and Insane in Charleston: Freedom and Divorce Among Free People of Color in Antebellum South Carolina.”
