Cook Society Announces Award Winners at Annual Dinner

Six members of the Duke-Durham community have been selected for the 2009 "Sammie" awards, named for distinguished political scientist, educator and human rights activist Samuel DuBois Cook.

The winners were announced at the 12th annual dinner and awards ceremony held Tuesday evening at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club. All were chosen in appreciation of their work in furthering Cook's legacy.

Peter Klopfer, emeritus professor of biology at Duke and civil rights advocate, was selected to receive a distinguished service award. Klopfer is a charter member of the Cook society and, with his wife, Martha, helped establish the integrated Carolina Friends School when schools in the area were segregated. He was named in the 1967 Supreme Court case "Klopfer v. North Carolina," which guaranteed the Fourteenth Amendment extension of the Bill of Rights to the state level.

Other winners were:

-- Martha Shumate Absher, associate dean for education and outreach at Pratt School of Engineering. She runs a nationally recognized mentoring and outreach program, Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), that brings minority and disabled undergraduates to Duke;

-- William J. Fulkerson, senior vice president of clinical affairs at Duke Health System and a professor at Duke's School of Medicine. As head of the Duke Hospital Diversity Leadership group Fulkerson has provided leadership in the area of diversity and inclusion. He helped enhance diversity education and encouraged all members to consider the connection between diversity and patient care;

-- The Rev. Mel Williams, senior pastor at the Watts Street Baptist Church and founder of Walltown Neighborhood Ministries, Inc. A friend and colleague of Cook, Williams has immersed his congregation in civic engagement, advocated for the end of gun violence as a member of the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham and is a founding director of End Poverty Durham, an interfaith group that seeks to end local poverty within 25 years;

-- Two Duke seniors, Dinh Phan and Flint Wang. In 2007, they created the Magnolia Tree Project, a two-week summer program that teaches Durham middle school students how to use the creative arts to perform service projects. Their curriculum has been adapted for use at Walltown's Urban Hope Camp. Wang, a double major in biology and cultural anthropology, is an active volunteer at the Walltown Neighborhood Clinic. Phan, an English major with a minor in education, plans to pursue a graduate degree in an education-related field.

Named for the first African American faculty member at Duke, the Cook Society was founded in 1997 to recognize and celebrate the African American presence at Duke. For more information and to find a list of past award recipients, go to duke.edu/web/cooksociety.