Awards

21 August 2002 |

Academic Senate awards top prize
Historian John Hope Franklin, a leading scholar in American history and race relations, has received the highest award given by the Berkeley faculty.

This summer the Duke University professor emeritus was given the Clark Kerr Award for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education. Established in 1968 to honor UC President Emeritus Clark Kerr, it is the top prize bestowed by the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate.

“John Hope Franklin is one of the great figures in the study of American history … for the last half century,” said Law Professor Harry Scheiber. “He has been the leading figure in the fields of African American history, American race relations, and Southern regional history in the United States.”

Scheiber, a former chair of the campus’s Academic Senate, traveled to Franklin’s home in North Carolina to personally present the 86-year-old with the award.

Franklin is perhaps best known for his book “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans.” Published in 1947, and now in its eighth edition, it is widely considered the definitive work on the subject. He has written roughly a dozen other books on race and history as well as countless scholarly articles.

Born in Oklahoma, Franklin earned his bachelor’s degree from Fisk University and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has taught at numerous institutions, including the University of Chicago, Howard University, and Fisk.

In 1954, he helped develop the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending legal segregation of black and white children in public schools. During the 1960s and 1970s, he served as president of numerous organizations, including the American Historical Association, the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, and the American Studies Association.

In 1995, Franklin was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest award for civilians. In 1997, he chaired President Clinton’s Initia-tive on Race.

The Clark Kerr medal is awarded to an individual who has made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of higher education The 35 recipients to date include Clark Kerr, former California Governor and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg.

Webcast Project honored
Berkeley's Webcast Project is winner of the Larry Sautter Award, a new award to recognize information-technology innovators on UC campuses systemwide.

The webcast project makes Berkeley courses and special events available to students and the public over the Internet using streaming audio and video. Collaborators on the project included a research group led by Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Lawrence Rowe, along with central-campus providers led by Marc Wallman, Central Computing Services; Obadiah Greenberg, Educational Technology Services; and Peter Pletcher, the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center.
The award is given by UC information-technology managers’ Joint Operations Group.