The award, in its 31st year, is UofL’s most prestigious faculty award, recognizing faculty members who have made significant contributions to student life. The UofL Board of Trustees made the announcement Dec. 10.

“I’m so honored and I’m so humbled by this incredible award,” Fosl said. 

Fosl founded the ABI in 2006, two years after arriving at UofL, and since then has helped UofL earn classification as a Carnegie Foundation community engagement institution. 

“The ABI mission is to ‘bridge the gap between academic research and community activism for racial and social justice’,” Fosl said in her 2020 Teaching and Learning Statement. “… ABI students, staff, and I have conducted teach-ins and civil rights history tours with multiple UofL classes across several colleges and programs, as well as in dozens of (Jefferson County Public School) and other K-12 classrooms, various local civic and governmental groups, and in or with multiple universities regionally.”

Through the ABI, Fosl has created funded opportunities for UofL students to gain meaningful new research and community engagement experience, focusing on issues ranging from homelessness to increasing the visibility of Kentucky LGBTQ history. 

Fosl is the author of several books including Braden’s biography “Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South” and “Freedom on the Border: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky” with her colleague Tracy E. K’Meyer, UofL history professor.

“Perhaps one of her most interesting, and literally far-reaching, collaborations was with her 2013 and 2016 study abroad courses in South Africa,” K’Meyer said in her letter supporting Fosl’s nomination for the award. “In these classes, Fosl taught the history of white women’s anti-racist activism in the U.S. South and in South Africa.”

The late Anne Braden was a Louisvillian known as one of the most prominent white anti-racists in U.S. history. She is one of only six white southerners whom the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. named as reliable allies in his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” 

In 2019, Fosl won a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award for the “Anne Braden Institute-Kentucky LGBTQ Heritage” project, conducted from 2015-2017. That project, in association with the Fairness Campaign, held statewide “History Harvests” to collect and preserve Kentucky’s LGBTQ history, and the ABI report was published by the National Park Service as part of its effort to document minority communities.

ABI also established an annual, free Anne Braden Memorial Lecture to focus on the U.S. civil rights movement. From the 2007 inaugural talk by Julian Bond, longtime NAACP president and rights leader, to activist Angela Davis, the series has brought to UofL nationally known speakers and authors on topics ranging from mass incarceration and Black Lives Matter to racial divides and justice in present-day America.

Fosl will receive $5,000 and a plaque recognizing her achievement. She will also be recognized at the 2020 Virtual Commencement at .

The Cooperative Consortium for Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research’s inaugural Transdisciplinary Faculty Grantees’ Roundtable and Reception will be from 1-3 p.m. at the Brandeis School of Law, Room 175.

The consortium is led by co-principal investigators Cate Fosl, professor of women’s and gender studies, and director of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research in the College of Arts & Science, and Enid Trucios-Haynes, professor in the Brandeis School of Law and director of the Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice.

The program focuses on arts and humanities disciplines, entailing research not generated from a science lab, which makes it unique, according to Fosl and Trucios-Haynes. It also promotes the relatively new concept of “transdisciplinary,” which Fosl describes as “cross-pollinating” research and expertise from a variety of disciplines (history and law, for example), and then adding in community partners outside of campus who have applied knowledge and expertise.

“Together, we’re seeking to find solutions to problems that are larger, more complicated than simply putting each of our disciplines’ best knowledge to work, even jointly,” Fosl said. “For us in the academy, it’s also a very intentional recognition that we don’t have all the answers and that we need community expertise and community practitioners. The ideas some of us merely think about are insufficient without that knowledge of practice.”

A call for proposals generated the first group of grantees, whose projects will be showcased at Monday’s event. They include:

• “Elucidating the Stories of Wellbeing in the West Louisville Community: A Phenomenological Study,” led by Meera Alagaraja, CEHD, with Dr. Lisa M. Hooper (CEHD) and Dr. Emma Sterrett-Hong (Kent School of Social Work), in partnership with the Park DuValle Community Health Center.
• “Middle-School Citizen Science Investigation of Global Climate Change: Developing Local Environmental Justice School Partnerships,” led by Dr. Mary Brydon-Miller, CEHD, with Dr. Shira Rabin (Biology), Dr. Bronwyn Williams (English), in collaboration with Marion C. Moore Traditional Middle School (JCPS) and Four Winds Nature Institute.
• “What is Health?  A Photovoice Project with Special Olympics Kentucky Athletes,” led by Dr. Priya Chandan, School of Medicine and School of Public Health and Information Sciences, with Kathleen Carter (CEHD) and Dr. Susan Buchino (Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky, SPHIS), in partnership with Special Olympics Kentucky.
• “LGBTQ Adolescent Health in Louisville: An Approach to Identify and Assess Local Priorities,” led by Dr. Ryan Combs, SPHIS, with Dr. Maurice Gattis (Kent School) and Dr. Amber Pendleton (Pediatrics), in partnership with the Louisville Youth Group and the JCPS LGBTQ Student Supports Subcommittee.
• “Microaggressions in Clinical Medicine,” led by Dr. Lauren Freeman, Philosophy, with Jennifer Stephens (School of Medicine) and Dr. Dwayne Compton and Dr. David McIntosh (Office of Community Engagement and Diversity), in partnership with the Kentucky Health Justice Network.
• “Civil Rights History in Kentucky,” led by Dr. Lara Kelland and Dr. Daniel Vivian, History, with Dr. Stephen Schneider (English); Heather Fox and Carrie Daniels (Libraries: Archives and Special Collections), in partnership with the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.
• “Examining Stigma, Stress and HIV Care Utilization among African American Elders,” led by Dr. Jelani Kerr, SPHIS, with Dr. Timothy Crawford (School of Nursing) and Dr. Lesley Harris (Kent School), in partnership with the House of Ruth.
• “Project STAAR: Survivors of Trafficking Creating Art, Agency and Resilience,” led by Dr. Jennifer Middleton, UofL Human Trafficking Research Initiative in the Kent School, with Dr. Maurice Gattis and Dr. Lesley Harris (Kent School), Dr. Theresa Hayden (Criminal Justice), Dr. Jennie Vavrousek, MD (Pediatric Forensic Fellow – School of Medicine), Dr. Zhixia (Richard) Li and Dr. Olfa Nasraoui (Speed School), in partnership with the Kristy Love Foundation.
• “Strengths and Needs of the Louisville House Ball Community,” led by Dr. Emma Sterrett-Hong, Kent School. with Dr. Kaila Story (Women and Gender Studies/Pan-African Studies), Dr. Ryan Combs (SPHIS) and Dr. Maurice Gattis (Kent School), in partnership with individuals from the Louisville House Ball Community.
• “Learning how the Community Leads: Evaluating and Informing City-Based Participatory Engagement in West Louisville,” led by Dr. Angela Storey, Anthropology, with Dr. Daniel DeCaro (Urban and Public Affairs/Psychology), Dr. David Johnson (SPHIS), Dr. Lauren Heberle (Sociology), in partnership with Louisville Metro Government (Dr. Allison Smith, PhD).
• “‘Minds in Motion’ in a Spanish Immersion School,” led by Dr. Daniela Terson de Paleville, CEHD, with Dr. Jason Immekus (CEHD) and Dr. Kristi King (CEHD), in partnership with JCPS.
• “Transforming Learning Communities: A Multi-Year Project Supporting Teachers of Adolescents,” led by Dr. Shelley Thomas, CEHD, with Dr. Shantel Crosby (Kent School) and Dr. Penny Howell (CEHD), in partnership with Westport Middle School, Seneca High School (JCPS), and the Kentucky Department of łÉÈËֱȄ.
• “Black Men as Agents of Change in Children’s Literacy Success,” led by Kathryn Whitmore, CEHD, with Dr. Ahmad Washington (CEHD) and Dr. Faye Jones (Office of Diversity and Inclusion, HSC), in partnership with Servonta.
• Housing Justice in Louisville Metro and Beyond, led by Dr. Lauren Heberle, Sociology and Center for Environmental Policy and Management, with Dr. Cate Fosl and Kelly Kinahan (Urban and Public Affairs), in partnership with the Metropolitan Housing Coalition (MHC).

Each of these teams will also include about 50 students involved as either research fellows, assistants or student scholar activists.

The program does require that research groups work with a community partner. Brainstorming sessions have been underway since last summer with a large group of faculty spanning numerous schools on both the HSC and Belknap campuses. 

“It’s very positive and has been a morale booster. But we don’t want to lose sight of the importance of really getting at some of these compelling social problems that need justice-driven solutions,” Fosl said. “It’s not only about building something at the university. It’s about building something at the university with the community that can move us all forward as a society.”

The Faculty Grantees’ Roundtable will be followed by a reception in the law school’s Cox Lounge. All faculty, students and staff are encouraged to attend to find out more about these research projects and how to become a part of the new social justice research community.

For more information or to RSVP, call 852-2371 or send an email.