Programs » Awards for Distinction

Award for Excellence in Diversity

The Excellence in Diversity Award, established in 2017, recognizes outstanding efforts in arts programming, projects, and/or scholarship to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. The award may be made to either an institution or individual for demonstrated and significant advancement of diversity in non-profit institutions such as colleges or universities, museums or galleries, foundations, and/or cultural agencies, especially in areas related to including, embracing, and/or enhancing opportunities for people of all ages, cultures, ethnicities, religions/faiths, genders, differing abilities, and/or sexual orientations.

2023 WINNER

Arlene M. Dávila

Arlene M. Dávila is Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at New York University and founding director of The Latinx Project. Established in 2018, The Latinx Project is an interdisciplinary space focusing on US Latinx Art, Culture and Scholarship. In addition to hosting artists and programs, it functions as a platform fostering critical public programming.   

Professor Dávila’s has published extensively on Latinx cultural politics in museums and contemporary art, media, and urban environments to explore the intricacies and ultimate challenges of visualizing Latinx art and culture. Her research spans urban ethnography, the political economy of culture and media, consumption, immigration and geographies of inequality and race.   

Professor Dávila’s publications, with a focus on public imagery and cultural politics, include Latinx art: Artists, Markets and Politics (Duke University Press, 2020), El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America (University of California Press, 2016), the revised edition of Latinos Inc: Marketing and the Making of a People (University of California Press, 2012), Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility Across the Neoliberal Americas (NYU Press, 2012), and Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race (NYU Press, 2008). Dávila also co-edited the collection Contemporary Latina/o Media: Production, Circulation, Politics (NYU Press, 2014). Her articles have appeared in AZTLAN: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.   
 
Jury:

Carmenita Higginbotham, Virginia Commonwealth University, Chair  
Anne H. Berry, Cleveland State University  
Kelly Walters, Parsons School of Design

PAST WINNERS

2022 Valerie Cassel Oliver
Jury: Sohl Lee, SUNY Stony Brook; Kelly Murdoch-Kitt, University of Michigan; Carmenita Higginbotham; and Jonathan Katz, University of Pennsylvania.  

2021 Margo Machida  
Jury: Sohl Lee, SUNY Stony Brook; Kelly Murdoch-Kitt, University of Michigan; Carmenita Higginbotham; and Jonathan Katz, University of Pennsylvania.  

2020 3Arts   
Jury: Christine Young-Kyung Hahn, Kalamazoo College, co-chair; Susan D. Zurbrigg, James Madison University, co-chair; Linda Earle, Temple University; and Jacqueline Francis, California College of the Arts.  

2019 Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) 
 Jury: Christine Young-Kyung Hahn, Kalamazoo College, cochair; Susan D. Zurbrigg, James Madison University, cochair; Linda Earle, New York Arts Program; Jacqueline Francis, California College of the Arts.