Recent Awards and Honors
Kirk-Duggan received the 2011 Excellence in Research Award from Shaw University because of her scholarship, accomplishments in research related areas, as relates to her teaching and her other scholarly interests. This Award is accorded by the University and involves recommendations from peers, former students, supervisors. She experiences all life as “laughing and dancing with God.” Assessment for this award also includes review of her Curriculum Vitae, her work at the university, in the academy, and the community at large, the engagement of her personal teaching philosophy, strategies and professional objectives, mention of other distinguished awards, and invitations to present at local, state, national or international conferences on teaching, research, or service. Kirk-Duggan was also the recipient for this Award in 2009.
Dr. Kirk-Duggan’s second Award in 2011 was being named to the YWCA Academy of Women in the area of Education. This was the YWCA’s 29th year of recognizing the achievements of outstanding women in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Kirk-Duggan joined 256 distinguished area women whose accomplishments and commitment to the YWCA mission have earned them induction into this remarkable group. Created in 1983 by supporters of the YWCA Greater Triangle, the Academy of Women Awards is the region’s oldest and most prestigious program celebrating the achievements of women who positively impact this community. Membership is a distinguished honor, recognizing women who excel in their fields while maintaining a commitment to the YWCA mission of eliminating racism and empowering women. When learning about this honor, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Associate Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt School of Theology, her friend and mentee for 17 years, called Kirk-Duggan "a prophet for our times. She's able to create a new landscape for seeing a way forward, where there might not otherwise appear to be a way," Floyd-Thomas said. "It's important for us to carve out new opportunities to construct, and her work has done that. She is giving us hope in the middle of what might seem to be a dismal situation."
Kirk-Duggan was named a 2011 Black Religious Scholar Group [BRSG] Honoree, along with another CME Dr. Luther Smith, Professor of Church and Community, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, while celebrating the anniversary of Howard Thurman's birth at the church of his founding, the renowned Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, where the two CME scholars were honored for their work done in Thurman’s spirit and in light of his life, Friday, November 18, 2011 before the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature [AAR/SBL] annual meetings in San Francisco, CA. This gathering of the academy and of the church community was named: “Making it Plain: Reclaiming the Legacy of Jesus and the Disinherited.” Each year, the BRSG consultation promotes an open conversation held in collaboration with Black religious scholars, clergy, and community leaders engage directly with the AAR/SBL annual meeting. BRSG designed this year’s theme in recognition of Kirk-Duggan’s and Smith’s significant contributions to North American theology and religious studies in terms of their pioneering research and profound teaching on church and community in the African American experience. Since its founding over a decade ago, BRSG has had the great privilege to recognize some of the finest scholars in Black religion such as J. Deotis Roberts, Henry and Ella Mitchell, James Cone, Peter Paris, Jacquelyn Grant, Katie Cannon, Vincent Harding, Delores Williams, Robert M. Franklin, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Gayraud Wilmore, Cornel West, Renita Weems, Walter E. Fluker, M. Shawn Copeland, and Emilie Townes as our annual honorees. BRSG was especially eager to celebrate the far-reaching influence of Smith’s and Kirk-Duggan’s scholarship and teaching of Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman by emphasizing how his life and legacy has inspired greater understanding concerning the study of Black religious thought and praxis on local, national and global levels. The BRSG is committed to creating dialogues that forge bonds of communication for partnership and innovation between Black peoples. Central to its vision, is the conviction that dialogue and collaboration among scholars, churches and community activist organizations is essential for cultivating transformative debates and promoting social justice.
Dr. Kirk-Duggan was named one of the twenty-six plus Black Religious Scholars Group's Womanist Legends, New York City March 2-4, 2012. This event entitled: “What Manner of Woman Is This?: Womanist Gala and Black Church Summit,” included: a purple tie and gown gala celebration at Gotham Hall; a day of worship, workshops and dialogue with focus groups, round tables, and mentoring workshops at New York Theological Seminary [the God Box], and the closing worship service with womanist preaching at historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem. The BRSG celebrated womanist scholars, pioneers and legends of the field, for their pivotal roles in furthering womanism within the church and academy. Womanism made its entrance into the realm of theological education and Christian discourse twenty-six years ago. In 1985 after merely being relegated to a written word defined and shelved in four parts as a self-avowed naming of one woman novelist, Alice Walker, in her text In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, the word “womanist” gave rise to a movement that was first embodied in the minds and faith commitments of three Black female seminarians and graduate students at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York: Katie Cannon, Delores Williams and Jacquelyn Grant. Womanist approaches to the study of religion and theology spread like wildfire throughout the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. Womanist scholarship and its approach to life is to make a stand for justice; is to intentionally name issues of oppression due to classism, sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and seek to help transform them. Twenty-six years, scores of scholars, and hundreds of publications later, BRSG marked this occasion with celebration, constructive dialogue, and critical engagement. The celebration and conference paid homage to womanist scholars and preachers as a call to celebrate our faith, critically engage our vocation, and further our communities’ empowerment.
Dr. Kirk-Duggan’s second Award in 2011 was being named to the YWCA Academy of Women in the area of Education. This was the YWCA’s 29th year of recognizing the achievements of outstanding women in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Kirk-Duggan joined 256 distinguished area women whose accomplishments and commitment to the YWCA mission have earned them induction into this remarkable group. Created in 1983 by supporters of the YWCA Greater Triangle, the Academy of Women Awards is the region’s oldest and most prestigious program celebrating the achievements of women who positively impact this community. Membership is a distinguished honor, recognizing women who excel in their fields while maintaining a commitment to the YWCA mission of eliminating racism and empowering women. When learning about this honor, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Associate Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt School of Theology, her friend and mentee for 17 years, called Kirk-Duggan "a prophet for our times. She's able to create a new landscape for seeing a way forward, where there might not otherwise appear to be a way," Floyd-Thomas said. "It's important for us to carve out new opportunities to construct, and her work has done that. She is giving us hope in the middle of what might seem to be a dismal situation."
Kirk-Duggan was named a 2011 Black Religious Scholar Group [BRSG] Honoree, along with another CME Dr. Luther Smith, Professor of Church and Community, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, while celebrating the anniversary of Howard Thurman's birth at the church of his founding, the renowned Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, where the two CME scholars were honored for their work done in Thurman’s spirit and in light of his life, Friday, November 18, 2011 before the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature [AAR/SBL] annual meetings in San Francisco, CA. This gathering of the academy and of the church community was named: “Making it Plain: Reclaiming the Legacy of Jesus and the Disinherited.” Each year, the BRSG consultation promotes an open conversation held in collaboration with Black religious scholars, clergy, and community leaders engage directly with the AAR/SBL annual meeting. BRSG designed this year’s theme in recognition of Kirk-Duggan’s and Smith’s significant contributions to North American theology and religious studies in terms of their pioneering research and profound teaching on church and community in the African American experience. Since its founding over a decade ago, BRSG has had the great privilege to recognize some of the finest scholars in Black religion such as J. Deotis Roberts, Henry and Ella Mitchell, James Cone, Peter Paris, Jacquelyn Grant, Katie Cannon, Vincent Harding, Delores Williams, Robert M. Franklin, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Gayraud Wilmore, Cornel West, Renita Weems, Walter E. Fluker, M. Shawn Copeland, and Emilie Townes as our annual honorees. BRSG was especially eager to celebrate the far-reaching influence of Smith’s and Kirk-Duggan’s scholarship and teaching of Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman by emphasizing how his life and legacy has inspired greater understanding concerning the study of Black religious thought and praxis on local, national and global levels. The BRSG is committed to creating dialogues that forge bonds of communication for partnership and innovation between Black peoples. Central to its vision, is the conviction that dialogue and collaboration among scholars, churches and community activist organizations is essential for cultivating transformative debates and promoting social justice.
Dr. Kirk-Duggan was named one of the twenty-six plus Black Religious Scholars Group's Womanist Legends, New York City March 2-4, 2012. This event entitled: “What Manner of Woman Is This?: Womanist Gala and Black Church Summit,” included: a purple tie and gown gala celebration at Gotham Hall; a day of worship, workshops and dialogue with focus groups, round tables, and mentoring workshops at New York Theological Seminary [the God Box], and the closing worship service with womanist preaching at historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem. The BRSG celebrated womanist scholars, pioneers and legends of the field, for their pivotal roles in furthering womanism within the church and academy. Womanism made its entrance into the realm of theological education and Christian discourse twenty-six years ago. In 1985 after merely being relegated to a written word defined and shelved in four parts as a self-avowed naming of one woman novelist, Alice Walker, in her text In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, the word “womanist” gave rise to a movement that was first embodied in the minds and faith commitments of three Black female seminarians and graduate students at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York: Katie Cannon, Delores Williams and Jacquelyn Grant. Womanist approaches to the study of religion and theology spread like wildfire throughout the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. Womanist scholarship and its approach to life is to make a stand for justice; is to intentionally name issues of oppression due to classism, sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and seek to help transform them. Twenty-six years, scores of scholars, and hundreds of publications later, BRSG marked this occasion with celebration, constructive dialogue, and critical engagement. The celebration and conference paid homage to womanist scholars and preachers as a call to celebrate our faith, critically engage our vocation, and further our communities’ empowerment.