PACME recipients recognized

Four members of the VCU community will walk across a stage Thursday, April 27, to receive their Presidential Awards for Community Multicultural Enrichment.

“If you come to the awards you will hear what people are doing,” said Napoleon Peoples, director of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. “It’s really amazing what people are doing not only inside the university but outside the university. People are making a commitment to become change agents and make significant contributions.”

This year’s PACME faculty award goes to Elizabeth Cramer, associate professor of the Social Work Masters Program, while the staff award goes to the Association of Administrative Professionals, an association for staff administrative support.

R. McKenna Brown, director of the School of World Studies, will receive the administrator award and Shivani Shodhan, co-director of the VCU Intercultural Festival will be presented with the student award.

“I am really honored to be awarded the PACME, and it is humbling to be recognized for what I am so passionate about,” Shodhan said.

During the award ceremony, President Eugene P. Trani will present one of these four winners with the Riese-Melton Award, the capstone award given for contributions to cross-cultural relations at VCU.

In addition to the PACME award, each recipient receives $500, while the capstone award recipient receives an additional $250.

“Even if someone doesn’t win the award,” Peoples said, “just to be nominated is an honor in itself because that says somebody is watching you and what you are doing, and what you are doing is significant and important.”

The nomination committee consisted of five people, including representatives of the schools of pharmacy and of the arts, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Services, VCU Libraries, and the human resources office.

“We choose people that go out of their way in their personal lives. If what they are nominated for is what they are paid for then that wouldn’t be fair,” said Velma Jackson-Williams, assistant vice provost for institutional equity and director of EEO/AA Services, who worked with the committee.