Wright Recognized for Public Service and Outreach Work

IHE alumna Theresa Wright is one of five faculty members and service professionals who received the 2019 Walter Barnard Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach at the Faculty Recognition Banquet held on April 1.

Wright earned her Ph.D. in 2011 and is the director of assessment and evaluation for the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach and the unit manager for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s Survey Research and Evaluation Initiative.

She has served as the principal investigator on more than 50 sponsored projects with nearly 20 clients, frequently working with state agencies and local governments to serve some of Georgia’s most vulnerable residents. Wright served on the University System of Georgia’s Comprehensive Administration Review Committee. She also served as committee chair for the Public Service and Outreach Assessment and Evaluation Initiative, which led to her being named director of that initiative.

Some of Wright’s most notable contributions have come in the areas of juvenile and criminal justice, as well as early care and learning, where she led the evaluation team for the Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s Juvenile Justice Incentive Grants and the Department of Juvenile Justice’s Community Services Grant programs.

Since 1992, the Hill Award recognizes distinguished achievement in public service and outreach by University of Georgia faculty members and service professionals. The award is named in honor of Chancellor Walter Barnard Hill, who led the University of Georgia from 1899 until his death in 1905. Hill first articulated the university’s modern public service and outreach mission and convinced the Georgia legislature to increase public support in endorsement of that work.