Ithaca College

The President Shirley M. Collado Faculty Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Ithaca College Community is presented to an Ithaca College faculty member who exemplifies President Collado’s vision of excellence in education as demonstrated through an inclusive approach to educational practices of teaching, research, and/or leadership.  This award was established in 2019 through the generous contributions of Gloria Hobbs, an Honorary Alumna and Trustee of the College.  The review committee is pleased to announce that this year’s recipient is Dr. Nia Nunn, Associate Professor of Education. 

As a scholar, Dr. Nunn's work centers on education, teaching, and psychological communal wellbeing with a Black consciousness foundation.  Beyond her classroom teaching, she has created spaces for students of color, particularly black women, that affirms their right to exist unapologetically in spaces that were not built for or by them. In doing so Dr. Nia (as she is affectionately known to her students) nurtures their potential as learners, scholars, activists and educators. As one of her letters of support put it, “The girls and young women who have been supported in the on- and off-campus communities she has cultivated have often remarked on the power of their engagement with Dr. Nunn in finding their personal voices, trusting their own insights, and appreciating their own worth and value as girls and young women. I have witnessed young women begin to self-advocate, to speak their truths, to get an audience with decision makers, and to refuse marginalization.” 

The processes of refusing marginalization and finding one’s voice are at the heart of her scholarship. One letter writer put it best, “Her personal and intellectual commitment, especially to girls of color informs the educational practices that Prof. Nunn innovates. It also directs and underpins her intellectual and scholarly agenda. I have read all of Prof. Nunn’s published work and several projects in process. She continually asks how to break the silences and negations that obstruct viewing girls and women of color, and then gives these women voice. Much of her writing interviews and interrogates the voices and themes that undercut misogynist and racist blinders. Her writing directly correlates with and formulates the ideas she insists on putting into practice.” Dr. Nunn has presented her work, often co-authored with IC students, at a number of conferences. She is currently working on a book on Black girl liberation that will chronicle her pedagogy for interrupting gendered-racism in the classroom and community spaces.

As many people know, Dr. Nunn’s work is not isolated to South Hill.  As someone who grew up here in Ithaca, she is committed to the Ithaca Community as a whole. One only need read her CV to see evidence of the decades long work in the Ithaca Community. Most recently, Dr. Nia has worked with the Cortland Theatre, the Hanger Theatre and the Abolitionist Teach Network to raise their racial consciousness through a process she calls, Radical Vulnerability. Additionally, Nia has engaged with the Ithaca City School District and Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine to create a Black Lives Matter and Wellness curriculum, respectively. But, perhaps Dr. Nunn’s most visible work is as the President of the Board for the Ithaca Southside Community Center and the Director of the Community Unity Music Education Program, or as it is better known, CUMEP summer program. In these roles, Nia has done everything she can to center the joy and enrich the lives of Ithaca’s young people. As part of her work with Southside, in 2018 Dr. Nunn wrote and received a $270,000 NoVo foundation grant for Southside’s Black Girl Alchemists initiative. True to Nia’s approach, the initiative is targeted directly toward Ithaca’s young women of color, encourages self-expression through art and literature and is intended to disrupt the internalized, gendered racism that black girls experience (Ithaca.com). This initiative is just one of many ways that Dr. Nunn strives to bring Black Feminist Thought into the 21st Century.

As is often the case with women who dedicates their lives to liberation, much of Dr. Nia’s work does not fit neatly onto the lines of a CV. As one letter writer put it, “Dr. Nunn’s CV won’t reveal the power of children who grow up reciting lyrics to humanity-affirming songs at Southside Community Center, where she … teaches every summer to children and to IC student teachers; the laughter and joy of girls’ sing-alongs in the car after presenting their insights to community leaders; or the thoughtful, teary-eyed, honest conversations about adultification or dress codes or heteronormativity that occur among girls and young women in her kitchen over healthy snacks and open copies of a book authored by a Black woman in their hands.” The letter continues, “It is worth noting that being a tireless champion for equity, inclusion, and antiracism is really hard and emotionally exhausting work!! What makes Dr. Nia Nunn even more deserving of this award, is that she does this important work in the community on top of living the challenges and fighting the inequities and structural racism in her everyday life for her own family. She works and breathes to make education and access better for all of our children, on top of her own children, and for that above and beyond she deserves this award and all of our gratitude.” 

And finally, in a statement that really sums up the feelings of her colleagues: “Dr. Nunn could not do possibly more for the IC community in its many avenues and iterations. She is an unstoppable and unique presence.”

“Not only is Dr. Nia very deserving of this award, but she deserves the gratitude of the entire community for serving as an equity, inclusion, and antiracism lighthouse for all of us. Dr. Nia is a teacher, educator, leader, educational activist, and mobilizing force on campus and off. She serves as a beautiful learning and activism bridge connecting Ithaca College and the community in many ways, especially for her students who will be our future teachers and leaders.”

The award committee congratulates Dr. Nia Nunn on receiving this award.  Ithaca College, and the community, are fortunate to have Dr. Nunn’s leadership and guidance in these important issues.  More importantly, the work that she does impacts future generations of educators, leaders, and citizens.