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| Vol. 19, No. 3 | Sept. 9, 1999 |
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| Vol. 19, No. 3 | Sept. 9, 1999 |
The American Psychological Association honored James Jones, psychology, with the Division 45 Lifetime Achievement Award at its 107th annual convention in Boston last month.
Division 45 is the APA's Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. It promotes public welfare through research and professional relationships among psychologists who share a concern for the psychological impact of racism and multiculturalism.
Derald Wing Sue, president of Division 45, said that the lifetime achievement award is rarely given but "Dr. Jones is considered one of the leading figures in the study of racism and multiculturalism. We're talking about a giant in this field!" he said.
Sue called Jones' psychology text book, Prejudice and Racism, a widely used "landmark text." He said there were many at the APA awards ceremony that were mentored by Jones and are now practicing psychologists.
Jones has served as director of the APA Minority Fellowship Program since 1977 and has worked on issues of ethnic minority inclusion within the APA since then. The fellowship program has provided support for more than 1,000 ethnic and racial minority students pursuing doctoral degrees in various aspects of psychology and doing research in ethno-gerontology, substance abuse treatment and the prevention of HIV/AIDS. He helped establish the APA's Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs, Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest and Division 45.
The division has created an invitational symposium in Jones' honor that will bear his name. It is still in the planning stages, but Jones said that he will play a role in the selection and discussion of the invited papers.
"The idea was that they wanted to honor my role in the development of young ethnic and racial minority psychologists by honoring me while I'm still alive and playing a role in APA. It is heartening to be recognized by the umbrella ethnic minority issues division for these efforts," he said.
Jones has been a faculty member at UD since 1982. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Yale University in 1970, then taught at Harvard University for six years, winning a Guggenheim fellowship to study in the West Indies in 1973. The first edition of Prejudice and Racism was published in 1972. Realizing the enormous amount of research that has taken place since then, he decided to revise and update the book with a second edition, published in 1997.
Jones said receiving the lifetime achievement award felt "great" and that Division 45 has become "the overarching unit within organized psychology for ethnic and racial minority issues." 
-Barbara Garrison
