Parker Named Nancy Weiss Malkiel Scholar

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Traci Parker, assistant professor of Afro-American studies, has been named one of 10 Nancy Weiss Malkiel Scholars for 2018 at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Malkiel Scholars Award supports emerging faculty leaders whose research focuses on contemporary American history, politics, culture and society, and who are committed to the creation of an inclusive campus community for underrepresented students and scholars.

Each Malkiel Scholar will receive a 12-month award of $17,500 while working toward tenure.

Parker said the funding will help her complete her book, “Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights: Department Stores as Contested Spaces for Racial Equality.” The work examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores and its neglected role in the mid-20th century black freedom movement. 

Parker’s research and teaching interests include African American women’s history, 19th and 20th century U.S. history, race and racism, class, labor, capitalism and consumer culture.

“These 10 Malkiel Scholars represent both research excellence and an extraordinary commitment to mentoring students and serving their campuses and professions,” said Stephanie J. Hull, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. “It is a source of pride for us to be able to support them, and to honor Nancy Malkiel as the leader who originally inspired this program.”

The award is structured to free the time of junior faculty—including those from underrepresented groups and others committed to eradicating disparities in their fields—so they can both engage in and build support for systems, networks, and affinity groups that make their fields and campuses more inclusive.

The program was established in 2015 in honor of Malkiel, a leading scholar of civil rights and race relations in early and mid-20th-century America. In 1969, Malkiel became the first woman to join the faculty of the Princeton University department of history. She also served a record 24 years as Princeton’s Dean of the College, the senior officer responsible for undergraduate education at the university.

Malkiel is a 1965 Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a longtime trustee of the foundation.