Dilworth-Anderson honored by Carolina Women’s Leadership Council
| March 02, 2012 | |
| Peggye Dilworth-Anderson, PhD, professor of health policy and management at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, received the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council faculty-to-faculty mentoring award on March 1.
The leadership council also presents a faculty-to-student mentoring award. This year’s winner was Jean DeSaix, senior lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences’ biology department.
Dr. Dilworth-Anderson (center) accepts a mentoring award from Carolina Women’s Leadership Council members Julia Sprunt Grumbles (left) and Sarah Carey.
Dilworth-Anderson, who came to UNC in 2002, earned her doctorate at Northwestern University. A sociologist by training, she has researched aging for nearly 40 years, with a focus on caregiving among minority elders and Alzheimer’s. She currently serves as interim co-director of UNC’s Institute on Aging. In 2005, Dilworth-Anderson secured a National Institute on Aging grant, awarded to senior leaders and scientists in the field of aging to promote and advance aging research. She has used the funds — more than $500,000 over six years — to help support six junior investigators and to establish a mentoring group at UNC that focuses on minority aging and health disparities. The group has met monthly since 2005.
During her career, she has mentored more than 20 doctoral students, as well as many junior and mid-career faculty members, from a variety of disciplines. At UNC, she has served on the Provost’s Task Force on Promotion, contributing to its mentoring section.
“Mid-career and even senior scholars often seek her out for her advice in working effectively with more junior colleagues,” said one nominator. “She is seen as a role model for minority and women scholars and trainees doing scholarship in minority aging across the University and throughout the United States.”
Dilworth-Anderson’s honors include an appointment to the White House Conference on Aging Advisory Committee (2005), her service as past president of the Gerontological Society of America (2009-2010) and receipt of the Ronald & Nancy Reagan Alzheimer’s Research Award (2010).
“Mentoring is important to me because it is a way to give back to others who need support and guidance to build and sustain a career,” Dilworth-Anderson said. “Giving back is also a part of my cultural heritage and socialization, which I use to help shape my mentoring approaches.”
Dilworth-Anderson says that as a professor, she uses mentoring to inspire, help junior faculty and graduate students see and realize possibilities and know that someone is there to provide support and guidance. “Equally important, I am inspired by all the knowledge, enthusiasm and impact of those that I have helped mentor bring to bear on their discipline and profession,” she says.
Receiving the award, she says, “reflects the words of Maya Angelou – ‘When we learn we teach, and when we get we give.’ Many sincere thanks to those who nominated me and to the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council for selecting me to receive the faculty-to-faculty mentoring award.”
The mentoring awards, first presented in 2006, include a $5,000 stipend. They are meant to recognize outstanding faculty members who make extra efforts to guide, mentor and lead students or junior faculty members as they make career decisions, embark on research challenges and enrich their lives through public service, teaching and educational opportunities. A selection committee appointed by the executive vice chancellor and provost reviews and recommends award recipients.
The Carolina Women’s Leadership Council is a volunteer committee formed during the Carolina First Campaign, a major fundraising drive that ended in 2007. Council members have raised more than $360,000 to endow the mentoring awards.
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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