Dr. Leonard A. Slade Jr. will be honored at the upcoming 2019 Black & White Scholarship Ball.  Dr. Slade will receive the Distinguished Educational Leadership Award.  The Distinguished Educational Leadership Award recognizes those educators and administrators who go beyond the day-to-day demands of their position to create an exceptional educational environment.  Dr. Slade taught for twenty-two years at Kentucky State University, where he was Chair of the Division of Literature, Languages, and Philosophy, and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  He has received Doctor of Humane Letter degrees from both Kentucky State University and Elisabeth City State University.  Slade is Past Chair and currently Professor of Africana Studies, Adjunct Professor of English, and Past Director of the Humanistic Studies Doctoral Program and the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program at the State University of the New York at Albany (UAlbany). He has also taught at Skidmore College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  In November 2007, he was named Citizens Academic Laureate at UAlbany.  In 2005, Dr. Slade was named a Collins Fellow at UAlbany. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards including but not limited to the Professor of the Year Award, the Langston Hughes Society Distinguished Service Award and the Poet of the Year Award from the Institute for the Advanced Poetic Studies.

Under Dr. Slade’s leadership as Chair of the Department of Africana Studies, the Master’s program in Africana Studies was ranked number two in the United States three years in a row. He is also the author of numerous books and articles.  Dr. Slade is loved by so many former and current students of UAlbany.  He resides in Albany New York with his wife.