Last week the members of the Greater Birmingham Chapter of the United Nations Association presented their Outstanding Educator Award to Millicent Bolden of our Department of World Languages and Cultures.  I am sure that Millicent was grateful for the award, but perhaps her greatest joy came when she heard these words from the person who nominated her, former student Alex Sconfienza: 

  

"I took a course called Cultural Perspectives my freshman year with Dr. Bolden.  During this course we studied the genocide that took place in Rwanda.  One afternoon after class we started talking about the lack of involvement of the international community in Rwanda.  It seemed that almost every afternoon that I had class with her, we discussed current events and what the international community was doing about Darfur.  Over the next three years Dr. Bolden and I worked together to create and shape an organization on Samford’s campus called Project Africa Now that works to raise awareness on human rights abuses in Africa and to create change. Getting this group started would have been impossible without Dr. Bolden." 

  

The world is better because of Millicent Bolden.