April 23, 2009 - Dr. Frank Whittington received the Gordon Streib Academic Gerontologist Award, presented by the Southern Gerontological Society at its recent meeting in St. Petersburg. This award is presented annually to a person affiliated with an academic institution, who has developed educational programs in gerontology and conducted research that contributed to the quality of life of older people. The awardee will have provided leadership and made significant contributions to professional organizations and organizations that serve older people, and he will have made significant contributions to the field of gerontology through the publication of his research and through his teaching and influence on students, service providers, or other educators.
The award is named for one of the pioneers of the field of social gerontology, Gordon Streib, whose career at Cornell University and the University of Florida, spanned four decades and whose research produced landmark contributions to our understanding of retirement and senior housing. Originally entitled the Academic Gerontologist Award, in 2004, for its 25th anniversary, SGS renamed this award the Gordon Streib Academic Gerontologist Award.
Dr. Whittington's career defines the linkage between the academic and applied sectors. Although born in Kansas, he has spent most of his life in the South. He received his undergraduate degree in English from Mississippi State University and went on to get both his masters and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Duke University. That English degree and training has stayed with him, as he is well known by his students and staff as “the man with the red pen.” He has been known to correct grammar on sticky notes sent to him.
He began his academic career in 1973 at Georgia State University, joining the Department of Sociology and the Gerontology Faculty. He maintained active involvement with the Gerontology Program and the Gerontology Institute, and in 1995 assumed the role of director, a position he held until last year. After leaving Georgia State, he has served for the past year as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. At Georgia State, he was a valued teacher and mentor and an esteemed colleague. He directed many doctoral dissertations and theses, and one of his students, Sharon King, was a previous winner of the SGS Student Paper Award.
His research interests focus on the social dimensions of health and health care of older persons, especially African Americans. His goal is to understand how the kind and quality of long-term care older people receive affect their overall social and physical functioning and quality of life. He has studied prescription drug use and misuse by older people, the use of physical and chemical restraints in nursing homes, and the experience of poor African American elders as recipients of long-term home care services. Most of his recent research has been aimed at understanding how to promote independence and autonomy among residents of assisted living facilities. Among his 9 books and 60 articles and chapters, he co-authored with Mary Ball and other GSU colleagues a 2005 book entitled Communities of Care: Assisted Living for African Americans. His latest book, with colleagues Erdman Palmore of Duke and Suzanne Kunkel of Miami University, is the International Handbook on Aging, which will be published in the fall. He has been a most active member of SGS for many years, serving on the Board of Directors and as 2007-2008 President.