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Rebecca
Arrington
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| Rick
Turner, with his wife, Tamyra |
Turner
wins Sullivan Award
Staff Report
"Integrity
and commitment to others are words often used to describe Rick
Turner,” said Nursing School professor Sharon Utz in presenting
U.Va.’s Dean of African-American
Affairs with this year’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award
at Valediction Exercises May 19. “Students note that his
unwavering belief in them is a source of never-ending strength,”
Utz said. “A moral conscience for us all … he challenges
the status quo and enriches the University community.
One
of the longest-serving deans at U.Va., Turner heads the Office
of African-American Affairs, charged with “the creation of
a community supportive of African-American students’ full
participation in University life,” according to its mission
statement. Its services include personal counseling and peer advising,
collaboration with black student organizations, encouragement
of communication among students, faculty and administration and
programming that involves African-American alumni and parents.
Turner
also serves as special adviser on minority affairs to U.Va. President
John T. Casteen III.
Thanks
largely to Turner’s efforts, U.Va.’s six-year graduation
rate for African-American undergraduates entering in 1993 was
84.6 percent, the highest among public institutions in the country,
and the highest among any school — public or private —
participating in the Association for American Universities’
annual survey last year. That number has come a long way; African-American
students entering in the fall of 1976, the year the OAAA was founded,
graduated at only a 66.1 percent rate.
For
10 years before coming here, Turner directed the tutorial assistance
program at the University of California at Irvine. He also developed
the Saturday Academy, an innovative multi-cultural education program
for minority children in third to eighth grades in Orange County,
Calif. He launched a similar program in Charlottesville.
Turner
has worked for more than 30 years in higher education, in posts
including assistant director of admissions at Stanford University
and assistant director of the Veterans Upward Bound program at
Monterey Community College. He has also taught courses on school
administration, sociology, psychology and African-American history
at these and other institutions.
A
1963 graduate of Linfield College, Turner earned a master’s
degree at the University of Connecticut in 1968 and a Ph.D. in
higher education administration and policy at Stanford in 1978.
His doctoral dissertation on the academic achievement and retention
of black students in predominately white institutions continues
to be a relevant topic.
The
University bestows three Sullivan Awards annually to a faculty
member and a female and a male member of the graduating class
in recognition of their excellence of character and service to
humanity.
“It’s
more than an honor for me personally,” said Turner, of being
selected this year’s faculty recipient. “It’s a
reflection of the work of the Office of African-American Affairs
and the three deans that have preceded me,” he said, adding,
“No other institution of higher education in this country
has had this long-standing of a commitment to the recruitment,
enrollment, admission, retention and graduation of African-American
students.”
Student
recipients of the 2001 award are Bridget J. Kuczkowski and Kevin
P. Whelan. An article featuring them is accessible online at http://www.Virginia.EDU/insideuva/humanity.html
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