Gilman Whiting, associate professor of African American and diaspora studies, received the 2017 Distinguished Education Alumni Award from Purdue University’s College of Education, where he earned his doctorate in curriculum and instruction in 2004. Whiting was honored for his research and work with youth of color in the United States and abroad, helping them become resilient and successful.
Whiting’s dissertation on young black and brown fathers became the foundation for the Scholar Identity Model, a psycho-social model that he created to assist students, families, schools and communities to combat academic apathy. Beginning in 2006, Whiting has directed the Scholar Identity Institute at Vanderbilt, which serves black and Latino teen boys.
Whiting also was an honoree at the National Association for Gifted Children’s 2017 convention, where he received the inaugural Dr. Alexinia Baldwin Gifted And… Award, and co-presented on “Expanding the Scholar Identity Model to Work with Native American Youth who are Gifted.”