CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–October 13, 2015. Roosevelt University’s St. Clair Drake Center for African and African American Studies will host a lecture October 19 by African American media expert Sonja Williams and will give its first-ever teaching award named for founding Roosevelt University professor Frank Untermyer.
The event is from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in Roosevelt’s Gage Gallery, 18 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.
A teaching award in the memory of the late Untermyer, who was one of Roosevelt’s founding professors, will be given to Joel Okafor (pictured at right) of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. A Drake Center fellow and an adjunct professor at Roosevelt since 1990, Okafor has taught courses in a variety of disciplines, most notably political science, African studies, policy and history.
“We will have the opportunity to recognize a pioneering Roosevelt professor whose legacy has included lending much support over time to international students from Africa,” said Erik Gellman, associate professor of history and co-director of Roosevelt’s St. Clair Drake Center.
“This event also will be an opportunity to recognize a current Roosevelt professor, Joel Okafor, whose teaching reflects the kind of commitment Untermyer had for African and African American Studies, constitutional law, democracy and civil liberties,” said Gellman.
A Roosevelt professor from 1946-82, Untermyer was a close colleague and collaborator of the late St. Clair Drake, whose scholarship and activism as a Roosevelt professor on behalf of Africans and African Americans in Chicago are legendary. (Pictured above are Untermyer (at left) with St. Clair Drake).
“Frank Untermyer was generous with his time and his financial support for the university, and this inaugural lecture and teaching award will be a wonderful way to recognize him,” said Roosevelt University Historian Lynn Weiner.
Untermyer’s daughter, Amy Likover, will attend the event in memory of her father. “He believed that every student with proper intellectual support has the potential to effect positive change,” she said of Untermyer, whose students have included the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, Congressman Mike Quigley and Charles V. Hamilton, co-author of Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America.
Okafor, a native of Nigeria who came to Roosevelt in 1990 and shortly after became a U.S. citizen, said he was humbled to be selected for the inaugural award for a pursuit he’s always enjoyed doing for the love of his students.
Like Untermyer, Okafor’s favorite discipline to teach is political science and much like the founding professor, the Drake fellow also enjoys comparatively analyzing the dynamics of political societies in Africa, the United States, Canada, Europe, China and Japan. “You name it, I am excited to try and make sense of it,” Okafor said.
“When I get involved in my teaching in the classroom, it’s never about me,” added Okafor, who has received multiple teaching awards as a Roosevelt instructor. “It’s more about a contract between me and each student individually. I try to emphasize to my students that they need to know how to think and write for their own good and the greater good of others. I tell them that getting an education shouldn’t just be about doing well in order to make money.”
The award presentation will be followed by a lecture by Williams (pictured at right), a Howard University media, journalism and film professor and the author of the book Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio and Freedom. She will discuss the life and work of Durham, an important cultural figure in the history of black Chicago, former writer for the Chicago Defender and former host of a radio show on African American history called Destination Freedom that aired in Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s.
For more information on the lecture and presentation, or to attend contact Erik Gellman at [email protected] or 312-322-7138.
Source: www.roosevelt.edu
