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Law Professor Receives President's Award for Diversity

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 13, 2007) – Willbert D. Ham Professor of Law Roberta M. Harding is a 2007 recipient of the President’s Award for Diversity. University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr., accompanied by Jaime Nebbitt, interim chair of the President’s Commission on Diversity, presented the fifth annual President’s Awards for Diversity in honor and appreciation of those who have demonstrated outstanding efforts toward advancing UK’s mission to embrace diversity while maintaining academic excellence. The awards went to six individuals and one university unit.

Over her 15-year career on the faculty of the College of Law, Roberta M. Harding has displayed a firm commitment to the recruitment and retention of individuals of underrepresented populations, and has cultivated and promoted diversity to establish and foster a more inclusive and equitable learning environment at the college. Harding has broken barrier after barrier. She was the first African-American woman to be hired and fully promoted by the law school and one of the first women of color at any law school in the United States to hold an endowed, named professorship. As the only African-American faculty member, she reached out to students of diverse backgrounds to ensure that their experience here would not be affected by the low African-American enrollment at the time. She was the faculty adviser of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), helped produce the first directory of minority law school graduates, and organized a mixer for African-American law, medical and dental students. Harding created the Student Public Interest Law Foundation, which seeks to obtain employment of students in public interest positions that tend to serve under-represented populations and to help maintain student focus on jobs that are socially responsible and not just financially rewarding. She has been instrumental in the hiring of three African-American faculty members, two in the last year, and making offers for many more. She routinely serves on committees to recruit minority faculty members, and mentors and helps to retain minority students.

Winners in each category met one or more of the following criteria:

• Demonstrate a consistent pattern of firm commitment to the recruitment and retention of individuals of underrepresented populations
• Cultivate and promote diversity initiatives that establish and foster a more inclusive and equitable work/learning environment
• Consistently demonstrate efforts exceeding his or her mandated job responsibilities to promote and ensure diversity
• Promote and facilitate equitable education and social engagement with and between people of varying ethnic or religious backgrounds, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and/or physical and mental capabilities
• Exhibit visionary and insightful leadership to confront and resolve inequities through strategic decision-making, allocation of resources, and establishment of priorities
• Create new and progressive best practices that support the diversity goal of the strategic plan.

The University of Kentucky recognizes the importance of institutional diversity and has established a definitive goal for the University to nurture diversity of thought, culture, gender and ethnicity.

Recipients of the President's Awards for Diversity were selected by members of the President's Commission on Diversity Awards Committee. Award recipients received $500 and a plaque in recognition and appreciation of their achievements.

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