Henry “Hank” Frierson, associate vice president and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Florida with a faculty appointment at the College of Education, has received the Presidential Citation from the American Educational Research Association.
Presented at AERA’s recent annual conference in San Antonio, the citation recognizes Frierson’s scholarly contributions to inquiry-based learning in program evaluation and educational psychology and his unswerving commitment to supporting the next generation of education researchers and scholars. The AERA meeting is the largest gathering of international scholars in the field of education research.
Frierson’s vision for collaboration across fields and communities of researchers is most notable in the research roundtable for scholars of color at AERA’s annual meetings, which he has organized for 21 years. New-career scholars meet with senior scholars around scholarly and practical transitions to the education research academy, are welcomed into the field and are motivated to become rigorous researchers.

Henry “Hank” Frierson

Frierson has dedicated his life’s work to advancing the academic success of graduate, undergraduate, and professional students, examining the effects of mentoring, examining effective and efficient production of doctoral recipients from high-quality programs, reducing inequality, and advancing equal educational opportunity.
He assumed the top spot at UF’s Graduate School in 2007 after 11 years as the director of the Research Education and Support Program for minority graduate and undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as the associate dean of UNC’s graduate school from 1990-96 and became nationally known for his ability to generate funding for supporting both graduate and undergraduate students and increasing graduate student enrollment.
One of Frierson’s main charges through the UF Graduate School is to help generate more funding for graduate students and promote programs to encourage more undergraduates to go to graduate school, particularly Ph.D. programs and to advance professional development for UF’s graduate students.

CONTACTS
   SOURCE: Henry Frierson, hfrierson@ufl.edu; 352-392-6622
   WRITER/MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137