“Advancing equity was Ginny’s lifetime mission. That is the meaning of her story and an impetus for SELI and the Ginny Looney Servant Leader Award.” –Steve Suitts
shortcomings in the way they administered the program. Her report helped to prompt a Congressional hearing in Washington that led to improvements in the federal program. At the time, she was a recent college graduate and no older than a typical graduate student. Looking back, what aspects of the Ginny Looney Servant Leader award are you most proud of?
What inspired you to start the award in your wife’s honor, and what was your initial vision for it? Ginny thought the summer fellows program was one of SEF’s most lasting contributions to improving southern education and that it would prove as much over years and decades. She once said, “I would have wanted to be in SEF summer fellow when I was in college, had it existed.”
the state of Virginia called me to say that it was the program award that had helped motivate her to do everything she could to deserve the recognition she had received in the summer program. I met another recipient of the award a few years ago in Chapel Hill and learned how he had become a campus leader fighting for equity in the state’s college policies and practices.
I have been particularly proud of how the summer fellows as a group have supported the award as a way to highlight its central purpose – to inspire them and others to do their best in trying to make positive change no matter where they are, how old they are, or what they are doing. Every year they have been supportive of the one or two fellows who won the award. Have you seen or heard stories from those impacted by the Ginny Looney Servant Leader Award that particularly touched your heart? There have been many examples. When I was still working at SEF, one of the former fellows who became “Teacher of the Year” in
As you mark this milestone, what are your hopes for the future for the award? I hope the award continues to spotlight and inspire the summer fellows to see excellence, equity, and ethics as means by which they can develop the know-how and skills not merely during their time in SEF’s program but as a lifetime pursuit of excellence, equity, and ethics.
Can you share a memory of your wife that particularly motivates you in this work? Before she went to law school, Ginny did a research project for the Georgia ACLU examining how accessible were high school job training programs to Black, Hispanic, and women in rural areas of the state, where good jobs were scarce. She examined loads of data and interviewed not just school personnel and teachers but also students, their parents, and Black community leaders. She went the extra mile to get everyone’s perspective and, in all fairness, forewarned school administrators before the report’s release that it would expose
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