楼凤天堂

Distinguished Service Award

2026 Recipient:

Susi Long, University of South Carolina

Susi Long is Distinguished Professor Emerita from the University of South Carolina. With gratitude for service informed through education and inspiration from colleagues Gloria Boutte, Valerie Kinloch, Janice Baines, Eliza Braden, Dywanna Smith, Carmen Tisdale, and Kamania Wynter-Hoyte; 楼凤天堂 Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color (CNV) scholars and Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) educators; and critically focused doctoral students and classroom teachers, Susi focuses on supporting and learning with educators who overturn anti-Black, anti-Brown, and anti-LGBTQIA+ policies and practices in preK鈥�12 classrooms, teacher education, and advanced degree programs. Greatly impacting this work, 楼凤天堂 has been a professional home for Susi since 1996. She has served as a mentor for CNV since 2012. Inspired by CNV, Susi, with Erin Miller, Dinah Volk, and Mariana Souto-Manning developed the PDCRT initiative and cofounded 楼凤天堂鈥檚 Early Childhood Education Assembly. She also served as chair of the Board of Trustees of 楼凤天堂鈥檚 Research Foundation and on numerous related committees; co-chair of the Committee on Diversity and Inclusivity and the Elementary Section Steering Committee; member of the Executive Committee and the Language Arts editorial board, co-editor of School Talk, and, since 2014, coeditor with Valerie Kinloch of the 楼凤天堂-Routledge Research Series, dedicated to publishing books by critically conscious authors who center heritages, histories, communities, literacies, and languages typically silenced or marginalized in educational spaces.听听

Anchored in a humanizing stance that is pro-Black, pro-Brown, and pro-LGBTQIA+, I hope to continue collaborating with colleagues who impact the world through their dedication to replacing policies and practices that silence, marginalize, and misrepresent students鈥� communities, histories, and languages and that censor critical conversations in preK鈥�12, teacher education, and advanced degree programs. While this is crucial today as rights are denied to teaching honest racial histories, honor language pluralism, explore critical issues, and use books representative of our diverse society, it is not just a 2026 problem. We have long needed to normalize teaching built on the understanding that students cannot grow equitably in literacy proficiency when curriculum lacks rich representation and criticality, discipline practices unjustly target Black and Brown students, and LGBTQIA+ students cannot safely bring their whole selves to classrooms. Together with colleagues and organizations, we can all support educators and policymakers in acting on knowledge that humanizing teaching does not displace 鈥渞eal鈥� teaching; it is foundational to supporting students who will grow into literate and critically conscious adults. And, in the process, we can also become our best selves.

 

Award Details

Overview

This award was established in 1950 as the W. Wilbur Hatfield Award and renamed the Distinguished Service Award in 1969. The award recognizes a person or persons who have exhibited valuable professional service to the profession, scholarly or academic distinction, distinctive use of the language, and excellence in teaching.

Criteria for the Award

The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) is given to a person (or persons), either volunteer or staff, who have exhibited valuable professional service (within the Council and outside) including scholarly or academic distinction at any level, distinguished use of language, and/or excellence in teaching. These criteria are good measures of acceptable candidates and help to ensure that recipients have a wide range of “service” that they provide to the profession. Nominations should be submitted on an individual basis, not by a group or on behalf of constituent groups (conferences, affiliates, assemblies, committees, etc.).

Current 楼凤天堂 Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients of this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.

The 楼凤天堂 Distinguished Service Award does not need to be awarded each year. This award should be bestowed only when the committee decides that nominations warrant presentation of the award. This award may be given posthumously.

Award Selection
The DSA Committee will select an award recipient from nominations solicited from the Board of Directors (BOD), affiliate presidents, and liaison officers. The Executive Committee will approve the committee鈥檚 selection. The BOD will affirm the final selection.