UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Crystal Sanders, Penn State associate professor of history, has received the American Historical Association’s (AHA) 2021 Equity Award. Sanders and AHA’s additional 2021 award recipients were recognized during the organization’s annual awards ceremony, which was held in conjunction with AHA’s 135th annual meeting in January in New Orleans.
Founded in 1884 and incorporated by Congress in 1889 for the promotion of historical studies, AHA provides leadership for the discipline and promotes the critical role of historical thinking in public life. Each year, the organization presents two Equity Awards – one to an individual and one to an academic unit – to recognize and publicize those who have achieved excellence in recruiting and retaining underrepresented racial and ethnic groups into the historical discipline. Award winners demonstrate a record of mentoring, program building, fundraising, civic engagement, and/or other noteworthy accomplishments that enhance their department and campus culture and promote a supportive environment.
Sanders is a historian of the modern United States with research interests in African American history, southern history, and the history of Black education. She came to Penn State in 2011 as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of History and the Africana Research Center and joined the faculty the following year.
In 2016, Sanders created, supervised, and recruited for the Catto-LeCount Fellows Program for Equity and Inclusion (formerly the Emerging Scholars Summer Mentoring Program), a mentoring program for undergraduate students from historically underrepresented backgrounds that exposed them to, and broadened their interest in, pursuing graduate degrees in history. The program continues today as a collaboration between the Richards Civil War Era Center, the departments of History and African American Studies, and the Latina/o Studies program.
From 2018 to 2020, she served as director of Penn State’s Africana Research Center and oversaw a successful postdoctoral program that prepared recent doctoral graduates for future faculty positions. She was also the founding director of the College of the Liberal Arts’ Midcareer Faculty Advancement Program, a resource to assist underrepresented associate professors in advancing to full professorships.
Sanders received her baccalaureate degrees in history and public policy from Duke University, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Northwestern University. She can be reached at crs19@psu.edu.