Tiece RuffinTiece Ruffin, director of Africana studies and professor of Africana studies and education at UNC Asheville, has been awarded a 2022 Rosa Parks Award by the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Association of Asheville and Buncombe County. The award honors women in the community who have fostered a culture of inclusion in the Asheville community, worked to achieve a just society for the disadvantaged, exemplified a nonviolent philosophy in pursuit of a better life for non-majority people and inspired direct action in the cause of social justice.
“It is important to remind ourselves and others of the inspirational and foundational importance women have in our communities. Their voices and actions are real-life examples of how to speak up and act for the greater good of all,” says Jonathan McCoy, chair of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville & Buncombe County Community Outreach Providing Empowerment (COPE) programs. ”Dr. Ruffin is tireless in speaking up and fighting for the needs of our community’s diverse students.”
Ruffin accepted her award through a speech posted to YouTube on March 22. She was introduced by Cristina Viera, director of the Center of Diversity Education at UNC Asheville.
Ruffin is a passionate advocate for North Carolina school-age children. Just a few of her accomplishments include serving as an elected Board Member for the Public School Forum of NC, co-directing an afterschool community-based learning program in the Pisgah View community with UNC Asheville Professor of Mathematics Sam Kaplan and three community-based leaders, and co-curating the delivery of hundreds of STEM fun-packs with funding from the Dogwood Health Trust Racial Equity Community Grant, an initiative to tackle the ever-widening opportunity and achievement gap between Black and white Asheville and Buncombe County Public Schools’ students.
Ruffin’s research interests include learners with special needs, diverse learners, pedagogical approaches for the diverse and inclusive classroom, service learning, and the internationalization of teacher education. She has authored and co-authored several publications and presented at both National and International Conferences. Her book, Somalis and disability: Cultural context and implications for practice, is considered one of the best descriptions of the cultural context that structures our understanding of ability and disability for Somali African refugees, and how culturally responsive education systems can bridge or break assumptions we hold about our students and create new opportunities for educational growth.
Over February (Black History Month) and March (Women’s History Month), the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association released recorded spotlights of each of the four honorees. Alongside Ruffin, Kathey Avery, Sophie Dixon, and Antanette Mosley each received recognition for their leadership and community efforts.
All acceptance speech videos from 2022 Rosa Parks Award honorees can be found on the Association’s YouTube page MLK Asheville.
Visit UNC Asheville to learn more about Tiece Ruffin.
About The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County
The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County is best known for its annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Celebration as well as its community engagement and educational initiatives during the week of its annual Prayer Breakfast. These are its Peace March & Rally, Community Service Candlelight Awards, and its Youth Scholarship Program. The Association was also the lead organization fulfilling the requirements of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Remembrance Project through the Buncombe Community Remembrance Project.
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