Sherry Watt has been recognized by a prominent national organization for her "outstanding and sustained contributions to higher education and to student affairs."

Watt, an associate professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs whose research interests include identity development and multicultural initiatives, is one of 18 educational leaders from across the country named to the 2014 Diamond Honoree Class by the American College Personnel Association’s College Student Educators International Foundation.

The foundation describes its mission as “to enhance the student affairs profession and to generate and disseminate knowledge of college students at all levels within higher education,” on its website.

Watt was one of six educators identified as a 2002 American College Personnel Association Emerging Scholar.

The Diamond Class Honoree program started in 1999 and is a recognition program and a fundraising activity to support research as well as scholarships for members to participate in professional development opportunities.

The 2014 class also included two College of Education alumni: William Barratt (Ph.D. ’83), now a professor at Indiana State University, and Becki Elkins (Ph.D. ’04), director of institutional research at Cornell College. Watt joins fellow UI College of Education faculty member Ernest Pascarella, emerita faculty Elizabeth Whitt, and associate professorDebora Liddell, who are all former Diamond Class Honorees.