The University of Hartford is pleased to announce that K. Kayon Morgan, assistant professor of educational leadership in the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions, has received a Fulbright Global Scholar Award for the 2024-2025 academic year. She is the first Department of Education faculty member to receive this prestigious award at UHart.
The grant will allow Morgan to embark on a four-month, multi-country project to explore how groups of Black people in South Africa and Jamaica engage in anti-colonial expressions of liberation and resistance. She will also provide training on research methodologies. In South Africa, Morgan will collaborate with the University of Cape Town School of Dance. She will then travel to Jamaica, where she will work with the University of the West Indies, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1998.
“I am extremely grateful to the faculty and administrators at these institutions who agreed to support this project,” Morgan says. “This study is critical because it is poised to reclaim, reposition, and revalue the presence and multiplicity of Black existence in research. I am excited to dive deeper into my Caribbean roots, thus contributing to my homeland, building international partnerships, and fostering a community of interdisciplinary scholars.”
Kayon Morgan, Fulbright Scholar, College of Education, Nursing and Health ProfessionsI am extremely grateful to the faculty and administrators at these institutions who agreed to support this project. This study is critical because it is poised to reclaim, reposition, and revalue the presence and multiplicity of Black existence in research.
The Fulbright program, run by the U.S. State Department, is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious educational exchange programs, allowing 800 scholars each year to study, teach, and conduct research in countries outside the U.S. The program has only a 20% acceptance rate for faculty.
"We are thrilled that Dr. Kayon Morgan's work has been recognized by the prestigious Fulbright Scholars' program,” says ENHP Dean Cesarina Thompson. “We wish her the very best during her time abroad and look forward to learning from her scholarship and experiences."
Morgan received her doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Denver in 2017. She has been at UHart since 2020.
“I am grateful to the institution and the support of my colleagues for the opportunity to extend the complexity of my work,” she says. “This honor is the honor of my family. It stands as an example to my children that they are #BlackExcellence and can do anything!”