Catherine Marshall, professor of educational leadership and policy, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Mary Turner Lane Award.
The Mary Turner Lane Award is given annually by the Association for Women Faculty and Professionals to a woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the lives of women on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
The award is named to honor Mary Turner Lane, who was a professor in our School of Education, the founding director of the Curriculum in Women’s Studies and the first recipient of the award.
Marshall, a long-time member of the Educational Leadership faculty, has written extensively on women’s issues in North Carolina, nationally, and internationally and is the author or editor of numerous books.
Marshall has been nationally recognized for her work on feminism and social justice as the recipient of the Campbell Lifetime Achievement and Contributions Award from the University Council for Educational Administration; the Willystine Goodsell Award for scholarship and activism on behalf of women and girls from the American Educational Research Association; and the Bailey Award for Intellectually Shaping the Field from the Politics of Education Association.
She has led Leadership for Social Justice, an international scholar/activist organization pushing for more equity-oriented school leadership.
At the School of Education, Marshall established and taught for many years the course Gender, Policy and Leadership. She has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Vanderbilt University.
Her studies of the assistant principalship and on barriers to women’s opportunities in leadership have disclosed professional cultures that suppress diversity. She writes and teaches ways to re-think education policies and her analyses of the politics of gender equity policy have provided insights for scholars and activists advancing feminist agendas in education.
Marshall will be honored at the Association for Women Faculty and Professionals’ Spring Luncheon on May 2.