PHX Reporter

Arizona State University issued the following announcement on Jan. 20.

The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us to cultivate integrity in our lives along with happiness, according to Neal Lester, the founding director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University.

“I’m continually trying to respond to his call for maintaining integrity and truth that he framed as justice, peace and the social transformation and reclamation of our individual and shared humanity,” said Lester, a Foundation Professor of English at ASU.

He spoke at the 37th annual ASU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at Sun Devil Stadium on Thursday, where he was honored as the inaugural Faculty Servant-Leadership Award winner.

“For me, this annual holiday and recognition from my ASU community is but another opportunity to be better and to do better,” he said. “For me, doing and being better is being mindful of living and practicing those values that Project Humanities calls Humanity 101, those simple values of respect and integrity and compassion and forgiveness and empathy and kindness and self-reflection.”

Lester was among five people honored as 2022 ASU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Servant-Leadership Award winners. The other four were:

• Marcelino Quiñonez, an ASU alum, playwright, former high school teacher and the current director of educational outreach and partnerships at ASU.

• Roicia Banks, an ASU alum, current student and founder of Social Roots LLC, a social work practice for Black and Indigenous families.

• Ivan Quintana, an ASU student who works as a student support specialist at Mesa Community College, which he attended before transferring.

• Silvana Salcido Esparza, chef and owner of Barrio Café in Phoenix and a community activist.

The breakfast celebration was just one of several events sponsored by the MLK Committee at ASU, according to Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, vice president of cultural affairs at ASU who served as the emcee of the event. The celebration included the winners of the statewide poster and essay contests for K–12 students, several of whom read their essays.

This is the first time that the 2022 Student Servant-Leadership Award was given to two students in one year, Jennings-Roggensack said. Banks and Quintana, both first-generation college-goers, were awarded $2,000 scholarships.

Original source can be found here.