PULLMAN, Wash.– Lafayette Frederick (’52) will receive the Washington State University Alumni Association (WSUAA) Alumni Achievement Award at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Monday, March 2. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the WSUAA and recognizes Frederick for his outstanding teaching, research, mentoring and contributions to the fields of botany and mycology. College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resources Sciences (CAHNRS) Dean Dan Bernardo and Kris Jones, Greater WA DC WSUAA chapter representative, will present the award on behalf of WSU.
Since 1970, 475 WSU alumni have received the Alumni Achievement Award out of the quarter of a million that have attended the university.
Frederick’s interest in botany began as an undergraduate student at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, where he was inspired by famous botanist and plant chemist George Washington Carver. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Tuskegee Institute in 1943 and a Master of Science degree from University of Rhode Island in 1950, Frederick graduated from WSU with a doctoral degree in Plant Pathology and Botany in 1952. He completed post-doctoral work at Cornell University, University of Illinois and University of Michigan, and took his first academic position as assistant professor and later professor at Southern University.
Since then, his academic posts have included chairman of the Department of Biology at Atlanta University; director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Academic Year Institute for Science Teachers; and professor and chairman in the Department of Botany, acting dean for the College of Liberal Arts, and emeritus professor of biology at Howard University.
Nominator Jack D. Rogers of the WSU Department of Plant Pathology says that Frederick was best known as a teacher. “Dr. Frederick, now formally retired, is an outstanding African-American educator. He is well-known, beloved, and respected for his teaching and mentoring of college students, particularly students of color. He directed 53 M.S. and Ph.D. students.”
Among Frederick’s many honors are an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Rhode Island; the Botanical Society of America Merit Award; a NSF Education and Human Resources Directorate Lifetime Achievement Award; the American Association for the Advancement of Science Lifetime Mentor Award; and a Tuskegee Institute Distinguished Alumni Merit Award.
He is also the namesake for a species of Hawaiian shrub, Cyrtandra Frederickii, named in his honor by Harold St. John, former chairman of the University of Hawaii Department of Botany.
Frederick now lives with his wife in Virginia, where he continues to study Dutch elm disease and the fungal genus Neurospora.
“For more information, please contact Christina Parrish, assistant director of Alumni Engagement, at 509-335-6907 or parrishc@wsu.edu.”
