Southeastern professor receives LEH Literacy Award
Thursday, February 16, 2017
by: Rene Abadie
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University Professor of English Richard Louth was
selected as recipient of the 2017 Light Up for Literacy Award by the Louisiana Endowment
for the Humanities.
It is the second LEH award Louth has earned. He was recognized in 2001 with the
LEH Special Humanities Award.
As director of the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project, an initiative he
founded in 1992, Louth is devoted to improving the teaching of writing at all academic
levels. The SLWP is part of the National Writing Project, a network of “teachers teaching
teachers” about writing in all grade levels and disciplines. The program works with
teachers through annual summer institutes, as well as through workshops, writing retreats,
and writing marathons held each year.
Louth is also founder of the New Orleans Writing Marathon, where participants
under his guidance write across the city in small groups for hours or days at a time.
New Orleans-style writing marathons now take place in schools, cities, and National
Writing Project sites across the country, and have been an annual feature at the Tennessee
Williams Festival in New Orleans for four years.
A member of the Southeastern faculty since 1978, Louth is a recipient of the
Southeastern President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of the highest honors
the university presents to faculty. He also received the College of Arts and Sciences’
award for Teaching Excellence the first year it was offered in 1991 and served as
Southeastern’s Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences from 1997 to 2000.
The LEH is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities
for all residents in the state. The award will be presented April 13 at the 2017 Bright
Lights Award Dinner at the Shaw Center for the Arts in Baton Rouge. The event is sponsored
by Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser and Entergy Louisiana.
