Dr. Mitali P. Wong Receives South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Excellence in Teaching Award
Apr 17, 2015
Dr. Mitali P. Wong, coordinator of English in the Claflin University Department of English and Foreign Languages, was among 20 faculty members honored at the 10th Annual Excellence in Teaching Awards Dinner on Tuesday (April 14), hosted by the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU).
Wong is a tenured professor who has been on the Claflin University faculty for more than 16 years. She teaches courses in world literature; Shakespeare; literary criticism, gender studies, and first-year English.
Each of the 20 member institutions of the SCICU consortium selects one faculty member to receive the award, which includes a professional development grant of $3,000 for the professor.
“This year’s award recipients demonstrated a remarkable blend of scholarship, passion, commitment, and the ability to motivate students to new heights,” said Kathy McKinney, Chair of the SCICU Board of Trustees. The award ceremony was part of South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Week (April 13- 17), which was recognized by the South Carolina General Assembly and Gov. Nikki Haley.
Wong earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University of Calcutta in Kolkata, India. She received her Ph.D. in English at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. She received the James E. Hunter Award in 2001 for Excellence in Teaching at Claflin University.
In 2012 and 2013, Wong received a Humanities Initiatives Award from the National Endowment for Humanities and a grant for $99,992 for curriculum development and research on Classical and Contemporary Literature from South Asia. In 2013-2014, she worked with the University of Calcutta for Claflin University’s partnership award with the international Obama-Singh Initiative resulting in a grant of more than $270,000.
Wong has written for several academic periodicals and she published "Politics and Tropes in Renaissance History Plays" (2006). She has published "The English-Language Poetry of South Asians: The Colonial Era to the Present" (2013). She is the first author of "The Fiction of South Asians in North America and the Caribbean" (2004), co-authored by Zia Hasan.