Welborn Named 2026 Recipient of the Dr. Norman A. White Award
Jaime E. Welborn, Ph.D., assistant professor of education leadership in the School of Education, has been named the 2026 Dr. Norman A. White Award for Engaged Scholarship and Service honoree. Welborn was recognized at the annual Faculty Senate Fall Reception on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
Established in 2018, the award honors a SLU faculty member whose scholarship and service reflect a sustained commitment to community-engaged partnership. The award recognizes faculty who build authentic university-community partnerships focused on promoting healthy individuals, families, and communities; alleviating poverty, violence, injustice, and inequity; and advancing social justice for vulnerable populations.
In her acceptance remarks, Welborn built her speech around the image of doors — the ones people work to open, the ones opened for others, and the ones people are grateful never opened at all.
She traced her path back to 2015, when her dissertation chair sent her back to discover what she was truly passionate about — a redirection that led her to the framework of Cultural Proficiency and reshaped the trajectory of her scholarship and partnerships ever since.
Welborn described engaged scholarship as work that happens with communities, not to or for them; a distinction she connected to Norm White's legacy and to SLU's Jesuit, Catholic identity.
"Dr. White understood that scholarship cannot simply describe injustice," she said. "At its best, scholarship should help us do something about it."
Remembering Norm White
The honor is named for Norman "Norm" White, Ph.D., a scholar-activist who joined SLU's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice in 2004 and became one of the university's most influential voices for community-engaged research.
Known as a "quiet giant" for change, White spent his career working alongside communities affected by poverty, violence, and systemic racism. He was a principal architect of SLU's Overground Railroad to Literacy Project and the Shut It Down: Closing the School-to-Prison Pipeline initiative, and his research helped drive real change in St. Louis Public Schools and the region's juvenile justice system. He died suddenly in December 2017 at age 64.
White’s widow, Liz White, attended Tuesday's reception and shared personal reflections on who Norm was as a husband, a partner in music and ministry, and a tireless advocate for children he described as "immersed in risk."