Cynthia Dillard was six years old when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.She remembers holding her father’s hand and marching through Seattle to mourn and honor King. Dillard had no idea then that nearly 30 years later she would be receiving an award conceived in his memory.Dillard was named the 1997 recipient of the Columbus Education Association’s Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award, which was first given in 1980. She was presented with the annual award at a Columbus Education Association banquet at the Hyatt Regency Tuesday night. ‘All of this is a deeply humbling experience,’ Dillard said. ‘I’m both fascinated and humbled by the impact that I may have had on folks’ lives without even knowing it.’Dillard, an assistant professor in the Department of Education Theory and Practice and an assistant dean of the OSU College of Education’s Office of Diversity and Outreach, which provides programs addressing a more diverse and representative faculty and student body.Dillard was nominated for the award by former OSU student Monnette Glason, said Bob Buelow, staff consultant at the association.’She has spent many hours listening, guiding and nurturing me as a professional and a person,’ Glason wrote of Dillard in her nomination letter. ‘She has the ability to create a supportive environment that nurtures bonds between herself and her students.”We try to find people from the community who exemplify the message that Dr. King was trying to present,’ Buelow said.In the past five years, the percentage of black students in the College of Education has risen 8 percent to almost 13 percent. ‘It’s still not where we want it to be, but it’s better than it was,’ Dillard said. Dillard said her work is personally fulfilling and she thinks it’s helpful to the community as well.’But I don’t think any of us know when and where we are going to be influential which also suggests that we all have to be a lot more responsible about what we are putting out there in the world.’Dillard founded Opening Doors, a program to encourage minority students to pursue graduate degrees, six years ago while she was a faculty member at Washington State University. She brought the program to OSU three years later; the initiative is one of her proudest accomplishments.’Opening Doors is a six-week, intensive summer program designed to introduce students of color to the world of graduate study,’ Dillard said. ‘Participants learn about research and how they fit into the world as a researcher. They also discuss how issues of race, class, ethnicity, and diversity are critical issues for scholars of color to be looking at as experts, first and foremost, but also as talented folks that need to be discussing issues that we care deeply about.”Over the last six years, 120 students have gone through the program,’ Dillard said. ‘About 72 percent have gone on to get graduate degrees or are in graduate school. About 20 percent are now teaching in our public schools. These are all Latino students. For me, it’s a wonderful thing.’Dillard said it is important to correlate education with the community on a larger scale.’If I have a message, it would be this,’ Dillard said. ‘The education that any of us get, the education that is provided through our work, is only as good as its ripple effect, or its contribution to a larger community to real life people in real life places. Education only matters if somebody recognizes it as important to their lives.’