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Central conferred its Distinguished Service Award — one of its highest honors — on veteran faculty member and Anthropology Department Chair Dr. Evelyn Newman Phillips.
President Toro announced Dr. Phillips as this year’s Distinguished Service Award (DSA) winner on Sept. 27 during the University’s annual opening meeting for faculty and staff. The DSA recognizes members of the Central community who have provided exemplary service to the university over an extended period of time. Nominations for the award are submitted by faculty and staff, students, and peers at other institutions of higher learning.
In their nomination letter, members of the Anthropology Department wrote, “In all her roles at Central and within the community, Dr. Phillips has exemplified uncommon commitment, vision, and selflessness. She has justly earned the admiration and gratitude of her colleagues, students, and members of the wider social community.”
Appointed to the Central faculty in 1994, Dr. Phillips immediately joined the African Studies Committee and played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Center for Africana Studies in 2001. She has served as the center’s director, interim director, and co-director and has developed and nurtured its annual conference for more than 25 years.
Dr. Phillips is also a Faculty Senator and a member of the Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee and the Affirmative Action Employee Advisory Committee. A longtime member of the International Studies Committee, she served as its chair from 2006 to 2012.
In 2019, Dr. Phillips and her colleagues on the Ebenezer Bassett Memorialization Committee completed their signature project of renaming the former Social Sciences Building in honor of Central alumnus and education trailblazer Ebenezer Bassett. Soon thereafter, Dr. Phillips launched a campus-wide 30th anniversary celebration for the Anthropology Department and stepped up as a founding committee member of the CCSU John Lewis Institute for Social Justice, which was established in 2021.
Known as a dedicated educator and advocate for students, Dr. Phillips has been nominated multiple times for the CCSU Excellence in Teaching Award, an honor she garnered in 2016. She has also received the Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring from the CCSU Student Chapter of the NAACP.
Dr. Phillips has furthered the community engagement goals of the university through several endeavors, most notably the ongoing New Britain African American Oral History Project, which she developed in collaboration with the African American community of Greater New Britain. In addition to its benefits to the local community, the legacy project has provided opportunities for Central student interns to engage in fieldwork and develop research skills. In 2015 Dr. Phillips was honored with the John P. Shaw Community Service Award from the New Britain Branch NAACP.
Dr. Phillips earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Social Work from Florida State University. She holds a doctorate in Applied Anthropology from the University of South Florida.