Daily News

Bay Path’s Decorti Rodgers-Tonge to Receive African American Female Professor Award

LONGMEADOW — Decorti Rodgers-Tonge, chair of the Undergraduate Accounting department and assistant professor of Accounting at Bay Path University, has been selected to receive an African American Female Professor Award (AAFPAA).

This award will be presented to Rodgers-Tonge at the African American Female Professor Awards (AAFPA) Celebration on Thursday, Sept. 27 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Griswold Theater at American International College in Springfield. She will be honored along with two other African-American female college professors.

“We are so proud of Dee for this well-deserved recognition,” said Thomas Loper, associate provost and dean for the university’s School of Science and Management, said. “This award is a wonderful tribute to all that she is doing for her students each day.”

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, as of the fall of 2015, among full-time professors, 58% were white males, 26% were white females, 2% percent were black males, and 1% were black females.

Rodgers-Tonge is the second Bay Path professor to receive the AAFPAA. Janine Fondon, assistant professor and chair of Undergraduate Communications, was honored at the inaugural event in 2017.

The goal of the AAFPA is to recognize African-American female faculty who are full-time, part-time, or adjunct, with the hope that this recognition will help institutions recruit and retain African-American female professors, as well as inspire African-American female educators to continue their work in the classroom and pursue post-secondary assignments.