K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award
The K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education and who are committed to academic innovation in the areas of equity, community engagement, and teaching and learning.
Nomination Process
All doctoral-seeking graduate students who are planning a career in higher education are eligible for nomination, regardless of academic discipline. Graduate students in fields where the master’s degree is the terminal degree (such as the MFA in art) are also eligible.
Nominations by a faculty member or administrator are required. Nominations undergo a robust and multi-phase review process engaging past Cross Award winners and AAC&U staff. Winners are selected based upon their demonstrated commitments to equity, innovations in teaching and learning, and community engagement as integrated components of their graduate work.
Nominations for the 2024 Cross Awards will be invited in August 2023.
Award
The awards are announced annually in December, and recipients of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Awards will be recognized at, and will participate in, AAC&U’s Annual Meeting in January.
The K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Awards provide financial support for graduate students to attend AAC&U’s Annual Meeting. All award recipients are required to attend the meeting.
The awards include travel, lodging, meeting registration, and a one-year affiliation with AAC&U, including a subscription to Liberal Education magazine.
Each year, hundreds of laudable graduate students are nominated for the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. As such, all finalists—including the winners—are inducted into the AAC&U Future Leaders Society and have access to an exclusive community designed to support ongoing engagement, collaboration, and support.
For more information, contact Kathryn Enke at 202.888.4647 or [email protected].
Recipients of the 2023 K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award
Jedaidah Chilufya
Plant Biology, University of Massachusetts AmherstElizabeth Kelley
Chemistry, University of ChicagoNicholas B. Lacy
Communications, Purdue UniversityJannell McConnell Parsons
English, University of KentuckyKirby J. Schmidt
Agricultural Education, Oregon State UniversityBritt Threatt
Africana Studies, Brown UniversityJordan Westcott
Counselor Education, Virginia TechClint Whitten
Foundations of Education, Virginia TechAshley S. Wright
Higher Education Leadership, University of Dayton

About K. Patricia Cross
The awards honor the work of K. Patricia Cross, Professor Emerita of Higher Education at the University of California–Berkeley. Throughout her career, Dr. Cross helped the higher education community better understand our students, their characteristics, and their needs, and recognize what our responsibilities should be. Her groundbreaking scholarship paved the way for a legacy of work on age, socioeconomic class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and numerous other aspects of intersectional social identity. In Memoriam: K. Patricia Cross