Human Dignity Award, Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes, Rutgers University (May 2014). Recognized for demonstrated extraordinary achievement and commitment in promoting the value and importance of diversity at Rutgers and in society.

Citation: “Dr. Rick H. Lee has been a remarkable visionary for over a decade, devoting himself to building bridges across diverse disciplines and groups and to bringing together faculty, students, staff, and the surrounding community into dialogue about critical questions that confront our lives. He is a faculty mentor who cares genuinely for his students, as whole persons with complex identities, desires, cultures and family backgrounds. Dr. Lee’s work in Rutgers classrooms, as well as Coordinator of Asian American Studies Programming in American Studies, and as Associate Director of Rutgers’ new Tyler Clementi Center has brought to the campus intellectually rich and diverse programming. At the Tyler Clementi Center, Dr. Lee has worked especially to focus on students in transition to college and coming of age in the digital era. In developing the Asian American Studies Undergraduate Symposium, now in its fourth year, and the Learning Community, Dr. Lee has given the field and its students visibility, and their ideas and creativity a platform. Because of his tireless, unwavering commitment to advancing our common purposes of crossing cultural, ethnic, racial, and all other boundaries, Dr. Rick Lee is deserving of the Human Dignity Award.”

Click here to read the Rutgers Today news article about the Human Dignity Awards ceremony.

School of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education, Rutgers University (May 2013).

Citation: “Rick H. Lee’s clarity of vision and his ability to navigate institutional thickets make him a formidable leader and generous teacher. His courses, cross-listed in both the English and American Studies departments, introduce students to the complexities of sexuality, race, and representation in the literature produced by and about minority subjects. His academic interdisciplinarity crosses into his pedagogical acumen as he guides his students through their own intellectual development. At root is Dr. Lee’s intellectual and social compassion. Time and again, we have been impressed by his tireless commitment to teaching and institution building, particularly his commitment to developing undergraduate programming that reflects the experiences of our diverse student body. Dr. Lee has strived to provide enriching and transformative experiences for undergraduate students at Rutgers, both in the classroom and beyond. Drawing upon his expansive local knowledge of Rutgers, he has played a key role in instituting the annual Asian American Studies undergraduate symposium and the Asian American Studies learning community — examples of co-curricular programming that help fulfill our mission as a public university. His boundless talent and organizational strength are matched by his intellectual energy. Rick Lee is a first-rate colleague, whose gifts — both personal and professional — are extraordinarily impressive. As such, he is fully deserving of the 2013 SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education.”

Click here to read the Rutgers Today news article about the School of Arts and Sciences teaching awards ceremony.