Great News About National Book Award Winners

November 24, 2007

Members of the Rutgers Community:

It is with immense pride that I share the news that Rutgers can claim two of the four winners of this year’s National Book Award.

As is noted on the front page of the university website, Annette Gordon-Reed, professor of history at Rutgers–Newark and professor of law at New York Law School, has received the 2008 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Her book, The Hemingses of Monticello, a superbly researched and written history of the slave family with close ties to Thomas Jefferson, is a landmark in American historical scholarship.

In addition, Mark Doty, a professor at the University of Houston who will join the English Department at Rutgers–New Brunswick in 2009, has earned this year’s National Book Award for Poetry for his book, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems.

I know you join me in congratulating Professors Gordon-Reed and Doty on their achievements, which put them in the company of some of our nation’s greatest writers and scholars.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey