Pitt's African American Alumni Council to Honor Jack Daniel And Six Other Alumni at Awards Banquet Oct. 22

PITTSBURGH-Jack L. Daniel, University of Pittsburgh vice provost for undergraduate studies and former dean of students, will be honored with a special tribute, and six other alumni will be honored with Distinguished Alumnus Awards at the Pitt African American Alumni Council Sankofa banquet, titled "Shades of Excellence… Hues of Distinction," at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 in the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel, 600 Commonwealth Place, Gateway Center, downtown.

The six Distinguished Alumnus Award winners and their areas of achievement are Jerlean E. Daniel (CAS '64, SHRP '72, EDUC '75), child development; Herbert P. Douglas (EDUC '48, '50), business; Donald M. Henderson (FAS '67), education; James J. Robinson (CAS '51), community development; Bryant J. Salter (CAS '71), international affairs; and Jeannette E. South-Paul (MED '79), medicine.

Linda Wharton-Boyd (CAS '72, FAS '75, '79), president of the African American Alumni Council, and Keith E. Schaefer (CAS '71), president of the Pitt Alumni Association, will welcome guests to the banquet.

Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg; Francine G. McNairy (CAS '68, SOC WK '70, FAS '78), president of Millersville University; Pitt Professor Emeritus and former Provost Henderson; and undergraduate Serwah "Rose" Afriyie (A&S '06), Pitt News opinions editor, will present the tribute to Jack Daniel, whose service as Pitt's vice provost for undergraduate studies will end Dec. 31. He will remain a professor of communication in the University's School of Arts and Sciences.

Daniel earned the B.S. degree in psychology at Pitt's Johnstown campus in 1963 and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in communication at the Pittsburgh campus in 1965 and 1968, respectively. He was an American Council on Education Fellow at Stanford University in 1973-74 and is a 1986 alumnus of Harvard University's Institute for Educational Management.

A teacher in the area of African American communication, Daniel is currently researching and writing about African American family communication. In his administrative role, Daniel has served as chair of the Enrollment Management Steering Committee, coordinating a number of campuswide activities related to student recruitment, retention, satisfaction, graduation, and placement. Also among his responsibilities have been new undergraduate academic programs and work with the Chancellor's Diversity Task Force and Equipoise on issues relating to diversity.

An active member of the National Communication Association (NCA), Daniel has served as secretary, vice president, and president of NCA's Black Caucus. He is or has been a member of the Governing Board of the College Board, the Commission on Human Resources and Social Change, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, the Florida Education Fund's Council of Elders, and the board of directors of INROADS/Pittsburgh, Investing Now, and the Hill House Association.

Among Daniel's honors and recognitions are NCA's Spotlight Program on the Contributions of Jack L. Daniel in 1995, NCA's Presidential Award for Contribution to the Black Caucus in 1997, and delivery of a Baldwin-Wallace College Marting Endowed Lecture in 1998.

We Fish, the Journey to Fatherhood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), the acclaimed memoir that Daniel coauthored with his son, Omari, was praised as a "fascinating and selective autobiography that focuses on a father-son relationship over three generations" by Robert L. Tener in the Summer-Fall 2003 issue of African American Review.

Daniel's TV appearances have included a feature segment with his son discussing We Fish on the Spike TV network program True Dads with Bruce Willis and an interview segment on ABC-TV's 20 / 20 with his wife, Jerlean E. Daniel. The Daniels were interviewed on 20/20 in the context of a story that explored the bias that job applicants with "Black-sounding" names face from prospective employers; they discussed the findings of a names study they did involving 4- and 5-year-old children.

Biographical information on the six Distinguished Alumnus Award winners follows.

Jerlean E. Daniel, former Pitt associate professor and chair in the Pitt School of Education's Department of Psychology in Education, is deputy executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in Washington, D.C. She has spent most of her career in childcare. In her current role, she serves as a member of the executive leadership team and has management oversight of the Professional Development Division. Daniel served as a member of NAEYC governing board from 1986 to 1990 and as board president from 1993 to 1997. Daniel received the Chancellor's Distinguished Public Service Award in 2004, the University's highest faculty honor for public service.

Herbert P. Douglas is a retired vice president of Schieffelin & Somerset, a subsidiary of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey Corporation, where in 1968 he became the third African American vice president of a major national company. A Pitt trustee, Douglas is a former Pitt Panthers football and track star, one of the two first Black football players at Pitt. He also was a three-time Amateur Athletic Union titleholder in track and a bronze medalist in the long jump at the London International Olympic Games of 1948. He has been recognized as a Pitt Varsity Letter Club Awardee of Distinction. Douglas is founder and president emeritus of the International Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA) and established the Jesse Owens International Trophy Award and the Jesse Owens Global Award. Under his presidency, IAAA raised more than $3 million. Douglas was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the New York Athletic Club, considered the most prestigious athletic club in the United States, this past spring.

Donald M. Henderson, Pitt professor emeritus, served as University provost, Pitt's chief academic officer, from 1989 until his retirement in 1993. While at Pitt, Henderson chaired the University-wide planning and budgeting committee. He is given credit, among his many contributions, for his roles in helping to establish the University Center for Social and Urban Research and in planning and developing the University Library System. In 2001, the University created the Donald M. Henderson Professorship; School of Social Work Dean Larry E. Davis is the inaugural Henderson Professor. In addition to holding the Pitt Ph.D. degree in sociology, Henderson has the B.A. and M.A. degrees in sociology from Kent State University.

James J. "Jimmy Joe" Robinson, pastor emeritus of Bidwell Presbyterian Church and its pastor for 30 years, was Pitt's first Black varsity football player in the mid-1940s. As well as his Pitt B.A. degree, Robinson has the M.Div. degree from Western Theological Seminary and the D.Min. degree from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Robinson helped save the North Side from riot-related damage. With his wife Betty Hord Robinson (B.S. '51, M.S. '70, Ph.D. '74), a former educator in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Robinson created the Bidwell Education, Music, and Recreation Center, now the Manchester Youth Development Center, which serves the Manchester community. The Pitt Varsity Letter Club has recognized Robinson as an Awardee of Distinction. Pittsburgh Magazine named him a Pittsburgher of the Century.

Bryant J. Salter, a former U.S. diplomat, is an international business consultant and serves as the director of Enterprise Florida's African Trade Expansion Program. During his diplomatic career, Salter served as the permanent Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Antigua; consul at the U.S. Consulate in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico; and consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has a Pitt bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Salter was a four-year letterman on Pitt's track and field team and lettered three times in football. Last year, the Pitt Varsity Letter Club honored him as an Awardee of Distinction. Prior to his foreign service career, Salter played professional football for NFL teams in San Diego, Washington, and Miami.

Jeannette E. South-Paul, medical director, Division of Community Health Services, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and UPMC Andrew W. Mathieson Professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine in Pitt's School of Medicine, joined Pitt's family medicine department in July 2001, after serving as a family physician in the U.S. Army for 22 years. She is the first woman and first African American to serve as a permanent chair of a department in Pitt's School of Medicine. For mentoring others, the Joy McCann Foundation named her a 2004 McCann Scholar. South-Paul chairs the Association of American Medical Colleges' task force and cochairs Pitt's Community Research Advisory Board. She is a senior adviser for the American Academy of Family Physicians Committee, with a family practice at the UPMC Matilda Theiss Clinic. South-Paul was the 2004 Alumnae Council Distinguished Alumna. A graduate of Pitt's School of Medicine, South-Paul also received an undergraduate degree in medical technology from the University of Pennsylvania.

The idea for an African American alumni association originated with a small group of Pitt graduates in the early 1980s. This group met in the intervening years and sponsored several events, generating the interest and participation of an increasing number of African American graduates. The increased interest and growth led to the group's recognition as an affinity group of the Pitt Alumni Association.

The AAAC's mission is to support African American alumni, students, faculty, staff, and administrators and to strengthen their connection to the University through its many programs and activities.

For more information, call 412-624-8229 or 1-800-258-7488 or visit www.alumni.pitt.edu.

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10/17/05/tmw