WPDHAC Steering Committee member Dennis Downey, Ph.D., professor of history emeritus at Millersville University, has won the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities’ 2023 Hervey B. Wilbur Historic Preservation Award.
The award recognizes Dr. Downey’s guest editorship of the Summer 2022 Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. The edition was devoted to “Exploring Disability History in Pennsylvania.”
Contributors to the issue include writers who are affiliated with the Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium:
- Sierra Green, archivist at Heinz History Center, wrote about research opportunities.
- Tina Calabro, former WPDHAC project director, and Guy Caruso, Western Coordinator for the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, wrote about the work of the Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium.
- Kate Fialkowski, Margery N. Sly, and Lisa Sonneborn of the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, wrote about Temple University’s intellectual disability collections.
The Hervey B. Wilbur Award recognizes significant contributions to the historic preservation of archives in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium won the award in 2019.
Dr. Downey will be presented with the award at the AAIDD’s 147th annual meeting, which will be held Wednesday, June 7, 2023 in Pittsburgh. Visit the AAIDD website for more information about the event.
