PINE BLUFF, AR, April 23, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Bettye J. Williams, PhD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Williams celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
After more than four decades of excellence as a professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Dr. Williams enjoys retirement and her work as the executive director of the Oak and Ivy Museum. Long recognized as an expert in African American women in literature and the history of the African American community in the Pine Bluff area, her passion for the written word was sparked by her childhood pastor, a scholar who wrote and spoke in English, German, French, Greek and Hebrew. Dr. Williams began her studies at the University of Arkansas, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1968, and was awarded with a graduate fellowship in the department of English at Pittsburg State University, where she would complete a Master of Science in English in 1970.
Dr. Williams began teaching at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 1968, and she remained an active member of the faculty until her retirement in 2012. In addition to her work with the University of Arkansas, served as an English instructor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 1969 until 1990, whereupon she was made an assistant professor of English and joined the school's graduate scholars program. After being awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her dissertation "Nella Larsen: Shaping African-American Female Representation in Quicksand and Passing," in 1993, Dr. Williams was awarded with a Doctor of Philosophy in American Literature and returned her focus to her courses at the University of Arkansas. Throughout the course of her career, she has taught more than 14,000 students, many at the graduate level, and she considers the large number of her students who went on to earn doctoral degrees in English or humanities disciplines to be the highlight of her work.
In 2012, Dr. Williams established the Oak and Ivy Museum in Pine Bluff, where she continues to dedicate herself to telling the story of African American history and culture in Arkansas. She has contributed more than a dozen book reviews and articles to scholarly journals, publications and academic compendia, including Studies in the Humanities, the Journal of UAPB Research, and the 1995 edition of the "Oxford Companion to African American Literature." Likewise, Dr. Williams' most recent works, "The Pioneers: African American Leaders in Pine Bluff, 1833-1892" and "The Black Church in Jefferson County," detail her research into the history of the region. She remains active in numerous professional and cultural organizations, including the National Language Association, the Modern Language Association of America and the NAACP, and she has previously held leadership roles in regional chapters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the National Association of University Women.
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