“It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure but low aim is a sin.” -Benjamin Mays
- Fulbright Senior Specialist (China),September 2006
- American Library Association Selected Book, One of the Best from the University Presses,June 2006
- College Language Association Creative Scholarship Award, April 2006
- Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year, January 2006
- American Book Award for The Contemporary African American Novel, 2005
- Senior Fulbright Scholar Lecturer, Beijing Foreign Studies University, The People’s Republic of China, February – July, 2004
- Fulbright Senior Specialist (Spain), November 17-25, 2003
- Fulbright senior Specialist, November 15, 2002
- Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award, Penn State University, March 25, 2002
- Faculty/Staff Diversity Recognition, PSU Multicultural Resource Center, April 2001
The International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, The Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, October 2000- Dubois/Garvey Pan African Unity Award, Morgan State University, April 1999
- PSU Class of 1933 Award for Distinction in the Humanities, April 1999
- Senior Fulbright-Hays Scholar, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, January-June 1996
- Ronald E. McNair Achievement Program Certificate of Appreciation, Coppin State College, March 1995
- National Council Teachers of English Certificate of Achievement, April 1995
- Outstanding Educator, Girl Friends, Inc., 1990
- College Language Association Creative scholarship Book Prize 1989
- Senior Fulbright-Hays Scholar, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, October1982-July 1983
- National Endowment of the Humanities, Young Humanist Fellowship, July 1972-January 1973
- National Defense Education Act Fellowship, 1965, 1968-1969
- Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society, 1969
