Awards and Honors

Robert L. Stearns Award
Presented to 
Ward L. Churchill 
By the
University of Colorado
Alumni Association
May 12, 1988

Jean-Paul Sartre observed, “It is the obligation of the oppressed to challenged and break every rule of the oppressor, thus seizing control over his life and his destiny. This should not be viewed as a dynamic destruction, but of creation.” Few words better express the thrust of Ward Churchill’s career at the University of Colorado.

A scholar without proper credentials, Churchill has proceeded to carve himself a niche at the forefront of American Indian and indigenous studies over the past decade, as is attested to by his many books and essays, awards and invited lectures. An administrator without pedigree, he has demonstrated a unique ability to create and maintain programs which stand as national landmarks in allowing ethnic minority and educationally challenged youth access to a state flagship university. Himself a “marginal man,” his effort and concern have been unswervingly devoted to the more disenfranchised among us.

Ward Churchill represents the best things the University stands for: excellence, innovation, equality, industriousness and commitment to a positive vision of the future. By refusing to accept things as they were and are, he has done much to transform CU for the better. And, for this, we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. For all of these reasons, the Robert L. Stearns Award could not be more appropriately bestowed.

• Herd Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, University of Colorado Student Body, 2005.
• Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on Human Rights, 2003 (for On the Justice of Roosting Chickens), Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights, University of Arkansas, 2004.
• Martin Luther King Colloquium of Scholars, King Center, Morehouse University, 2004.
• Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on Human Rights, 1996 (for From a Native Son), Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights, University of Arkansas, 1997.
• Colorado Book Award Finalist in Nonfiction (for Since Predator Came), Colorado Society for the Book, Denver, 1995.
• Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on Human Rights, 1993 (for Struggle for the Land), Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights, University of Arkansas, 1994.
• Teaching Excellence Award, Boulder Faculty Assembly, UC Boulder, 1994.
• Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on the Subject of Intolerance in the United States, 1992 (for Fantasies of the Master Race), Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights, University of Arkansas, 1993.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, Alfred University, 1992.
• Excellence in Social Science Writing Award, College of Arts and Sciences, UC Boulder, 1992.
• Thomas Jefferson Award for Outstanding Service and Achievement, UC Boulder, 1990.
• Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on the Subject of Intolerance in the United States, 1988 (for Agents of Repression), Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights, University of Arkansas, 1989.
• Annual Umoja Award for Staff Promotion of Cultural Diversity in Higher Education, Minority Student Coalition, UC Boulder, 1989.
• Robert L. Stearns Award, UC Boulder, 1988.
• President’s University Service Award, UC Boulder, 1987.

The Thomas Jefferson Award
Presented to 
Ward L. Churchill 
By the
University of Colorado

Sponsored by the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation, the Blair Endowment, and the University Alumni Association, this award honors a member of the staff whose life and work promote a Jeffersonian commitment to broad intellectual pursuits and the strong advancement of democratic principles.

Presented to Ward L. Churchill For his outstanding contributions to the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1978-1990 in the University Learning Center, the American Indian Studies program, the Educational Development Program, and the American Indian Educational Opportunity Program, and for his magnificent public service with the American Indian Movement of Colorado, the Native American Rights Fund, the Colorado Indian Education Association, as a delegate to working groups of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and with numerous other worthy causes.
 

[signed] E. Gordon Gee
President of the University
May 18, 1990