In 2020, professor Carolyn Calloway-Thomas received two of the most prestigious awards that can be bestowed upon a member of the national communication association and Indiana University. On November 21, 2020, she received the Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award from the National Communication Association. The award is presented to the person judged to have made the greatest contribution to the association during her career.
The contributions: research, teaching or service… in December 2020, IU awarded Dr. Calloway-Thomas a bicentennial medal “in recognition of distinguished and distinctive service in support of the mission of Indiana University.”
As well, at the National Communication Association conference in November 2020, the Central States Communication Association recognized Carolyn with a special panel on black women in the Academy and beyond in connection with the “Calloway-Thomas Inclusivity Speaker Series, “which is named in her honor. Her article titled “The Otherness of the Other” will be published in Spring 2021 in Routledge’s new volume on Business and Peace. She delivered a keynote speech at the “Women 4 Change” Indiana state conference in Indianapolis. And in January 2021, Professor Calloway-Thomas appeared on The Lisa Show, a production of BYU Radio in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she discussed some of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s lesser-known speeches. Moreover, as a guest on WTTV CBS4Indy on February 4, she addressed the topic, “Distrust and the Historic Mistreatment of black People by the Medical Community,” with an emphasis on the COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition, on December 4, 2020, she presented a paper at an international conference on Russia titled “Understanding Relations between Russia and the United States through a Metaphoric Cluster Analysis ” and a paper on “Afrocentricity and the Repetitive Master Trope, Racism, ” at Afrocentricity: An Epistemic Revolution in African Studies virtual one-day conference at Temple University (November 2). On the home front, as a guest lecture, she presented talks on empathy in classes at IU, gave a speech on the “Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr “ to the Indiana University Black Law Graduate Students Association, and moderated a panel on a film dedicated to the life of Shirley Chisholm aptly named “Shirley Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed.”
Finally, on October 26, she presented a talk on empathy and social justice at the Virtual Racial Justice Business Partner Summit with Eli Lilly, Comcast, CHASE, and Duke Energy. Such sessions are designed to encourage Indiana corporations to support scholarly and community work on racial and social justice.
