Southern University professor Namwamba receives national award

BATON ROUGE – Southern University at Baton Rouge associate professor, Dr. Grace W. Namwamba received the 2003 Food and Agricultural Sciences Excellence in College and University Teaching award.
The award was officially presented to Namwamba at the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges’ (NASULGC) 116^th annual meeting held in New Orleans. She was one of 10 recipients to receive the annual USDA established award.
Criteria for this award required professors to integrate research and outreach into their work and to reflect a remarkable capacity to import the future by positively influencing the lives of those students whom they touch.
Chancellor Edward Jackson presented Namwamba with a plaque on behalf of the university and congratulated her for receiving the prestigious award at a university reception held in her honor in the Lakefront room of the Cotillion Ballroom of the Smith-Brown Memorial Union. “It is an accomplishment for Dr. Namwamba, as well as Southern University and we are very delighted and proud of her outstanding work, and we appreciate her for her commitment to excellence in teaching,” said Jackson.
This was the first time that Southern University won a NASULGC teaching award. In addition, this was the second time in the history of the award that one of the recipients has come from an 1890 land-grant institution.
“Receiving the award was a very profound experience because I am doing what I should be doing as a teacher and it was amazing when everything came together, everything that you do everyday adds up. The judges read the credentials and to be in competition with faculty from other large schools was a very humbling experience. It gives me motivation to do a lot more for the students and university and to continue to build the program. It also validated that what we are doing on campus is very significant,” said Namwamba.
Namwamba is an associate professor in the apparel merchandising and textiles program at SUBR. She spearheaded the university’s application of computer
technology in teaching and implemented a course in computer-aided design. She conducts cutting-edge research on kenaf fiber and digital textile printing, and also finds time to advise two student organizations whose members have received national awards.
In addition to securing the largest corporate gift in a single year in the history of the university, she has received 13 grants that have brought the university more than $3.5 million in external funding in the past eight years. Much of the funding obtained has been focused on computer technology for testing enhancement.
Namwamba is credited with establishing a computer-aided design laboratory, a distance-learning classroom, and a state-of-the-art textile technology laboratory. She also received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Agricultural, Family, and Consumer Sciences and was named Southern University’s 2001 Teacher of the Year.
She is a two-time recipient of the SUBR Millionaire Club Award, a prestigious honor conferred upon university faculty members who secure at least $1 million of competitive grant money in a single year.
Namwamba earned a Bachelor of Science from Egerton University in Kenya, a M.Ed. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a Ph.D. from Iowa State University.
Namwamba was one of two NASULGC award recipients from the Southern Region. Other recipients include professors from Purdue University, Ohio State University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, University of Kentucky, University of California-Davis, University of Arizona, Utah State University, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.