Dr. Larry E. Davis, dean of the School of Social Work, Donald M. Henderson Professor, and founding director of the Center on Race and Social Problems, University of Pittsburgh has been honored with the Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award by the Council on Social Work Education at their Annual Program Meeting in Atlanta, GA. The Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award recognizes a social work educator's achievements over his or her entire career. Dr. Davis has dedicated his life to issues of race, civil rights, and social justice, with a career marked by several firsts. He was the first African American to earn a PhD from the dual-degree program in social work and psychology at the University of Michigan, and was the first African American to be awarded tenure at Washington University in St. Louis. “If we choose, we can ignore our racist history, but I believe we will be hard pressed as a profession to ignore our racist future.” said Davis at the award luncheon. “Professional social worker must engage more earnestly in our current struggle to make America a racially just society” The Council on Social Work Education, founded in 1952, is a non-profit national association representing more than 2,500 individual members, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education.