Mason Professor Finalist for Integrity Award

Story by Broadside Correspondent Brittany Rouse

Every year, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars presents an Inspire Integrity Award to one of the professors nominated for their integrity by honor society students. George Mason University’s own Benedict Carton, associate professor of the Department of History and Art History, has been honored as one of 15 nationwide finalists.

The NSCS honor society is made up of high-achieving freshmen and sophomores ranking in the top 20 percent of their class.

The society provides undergraduates more scholarship money nationwide than any other honor society. Students who are part of the NSCS honor society are given the opportunity to nominate a professor who has shown great integrity and a strong enthusiasm for inspiring students to enjoy learning and become successful leaders.

The award "focuses on the central role that professors play in promoting the pursuit of knowledge and critical thinking in an exciting learning environment that encourages personal integrity,” said Carton. “To me, [integrity] represents respect for self and others and a realization that social responsibility is one of the crucial values of our world.”

After graduating from Yale University with a doctorate in history in 1996, Carton went on to teach at Wesleyan University and the University of Washington before joining the Mason staff.

Carton is a social historian, specializing in modern Africa. His main focus on the discipline of history stems from hearing captivating oral traditions in southern Africa.
The traditions help to “narrate and explain the meanings of tumultuous events that changed the lives of people from Togo and Tanzania to Senegal and South Africa,” said Carton.

Carton went on to use his experiences in his teaching after spending most of his adulthood participating in human rights projects in Namibia, South Africa and Haiti, as well as public health projects in southern Africa.

He has written for news services in South Africa, as well as NationalGeographic.com and has lectured for the Smithsonian. Carton is the author of Blood from Your Children: the Colonial Origins of Generational Conflict in South Africa, coauthored Zulu Identities and published articles in the International Journal of African Historical Studies and Journal of Social History.

“Winning this award would be another vindication that public education works and should work for all,” said Carton.

The recipient of the award will be announced by the NSCS on Feb. 2. The winner will receive a $3,000 personal stipend and a $2,000 contribution to their university’s general scholarship fund.