Patricia Sawin Awarded Kenneth Goldstein Prize for Lifetime Academic Leadership

Patricia Sawin, Chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was awarded the Kenneth Goldstein Prize for Lifetime Academic Leadership for her important scholarship, her leadership within the venerable and important folklore program at UNC, and her important service to the American Folklore Society.

The longstanding Curriculum in Folklore at UNC is today an important constituent program of the Department of American Studies within which Patricia serves presently as Chair. This role builds on her work as the Coordinator of the UNC Folklore program over a much longer period (2004-2005, 2008- 2012). In her subsequent role as Director of Graduate Studies for the department more broadly (2013-2017), she continued to direct the folklore program if informally, and until today, Patricia remains the core member of the folklore faculty coordinating the graduate folklore cohort and program as needed.

Throughout her years on the UNC faculty (1994-present) Patricia has labored hard and well to maintain the distinctive strengths, spirit, and contributions of UNC’s outstanding folklore M.A. program, which is the oldest graduate program in folklore studies in the United States, having been founded in 1940. She has been central to the ongoing success of the program. In this, she has helped her colleagues—time and time again—keep the program moving forward in service of its students and the communities with which the program’s faculty and students partner. UNC is the hub for both academic and public folklore for a large swath of the American South, one situated within a larger international university hub for scholarship on the South. Patricia has played a key role stewarding a vital program through difficult years while preserving and extending its vitality and impact.

There is more to leading or contributing substantially to a folklore program than maintaining or improving organizational structures, budgets, and course offerings. At the heart of the endeavor is working with the next generation of folklorists. In this work, Patricia has also labored mightily, becoming a beloved mentor to many. For good reason, her students cherish her, and many have gone on to be key colleagues in AFS and the field.

AFS is honored to present the 2023 Kenneth Goldstein Award to Patricia Sawin for a lifetime of important scholarship taught throughout our discipline and the selfless academic leadership that has maintained strength of the model that is the UNC folklore program.