Georgina M. Smith Award

The American Association of University Professors invites nominations for the Georgina M. Smith Award, which was established in 1979 to honor the memory of an AAUP leader, Professor Georgina M. Smith (Mathematics, Rutgers), who was a committed feminist and a strong supporter of her local faculty union. The award, in the form of a certificate of recognition, will be presented at the AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting, which occurs in even numbered years, to a person who has provided exceptional leadership in a given year in improving the status of academic women or in academic collective bargaining and through that work has improved the profession in general. The winner receives a monetary award in the amount of $500, which may be split among multiple winners. 

Rather than awarding such recognition annually, the Association will reserve the distinction for those occasions when some accomplishment in either area is defined as so outstanding as to merit being specially singled out. To nominate a candidate for the award, please send by email a description of the nominee's achievements with supporting materials to Marlan Maralit. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Recipients of the Georgina Smith Award

1979 Mary W. Gray, American University
1980 Marilyn Sternberg, Adelphi University
1983 Belle Zeller, Hunter College and Professional Staff Congress
1984 Anna Penck, Western Oregon University
1985 Ruth Weyand, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
1986 Ralph S. Brown, Yale University
1990 Dahlia Rudavsky, Shilepsky, Messing & Rudavsky
1992 Bernice Resnick Sandler, Center for women Policy Studies
1993 Cecile Pillsbury, University of Wisconsin
1994 Ellen J. Vargyas, National Women’s Law Center
1995 Barbara R. Bergman, American University
1997 Dorothy Kovacevich, Kent State University
1998 Carole O’Neill, Emerson College
2000 Maita Levine, University of Cincinnati
2002 Keith Hoeller, Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
2003 Eileen Burchell, Marymount Chapter
2004 Linda Backus, University of Vermont
Margaret Quan, Diablo Valley College
2007 Dr. Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association and AAUP member from California State University-Los Angeles
2008 Candace Kant, College of Southern Nevada
2012   Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio AAUP conference, and Deborah Herman, executive director of the University of Cincinnati AAUP chapter
2014 Mary King, Portland State University
2015 Barbara Hopkins,  Wright State University
2016 Deepa Kumar, Rutgers University
Deanna Wood, University of New Hampshire
2017 Susan Fountain, City University of New York
2018 Deborah Smith, Kent State University
2019

Christine Blasey Ford, Palo Alto University
Jennifer K. Kerns, Portland State University
2020 Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, San Francisco State University
Catherine Moran, University of New Hampshire
Anne Sisson Runyan, University of Cincinnati
2022 Caprice Lawless, Front Range Community College