2026 Alumni Award Recipient in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

We are honored to recognize the recipients of our College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Alumni Awards of Distinction.

• Dan Ward, ’07, CLASS Alumni Award of Distinction for Professional Practice
• Rhonda Welsh, Honorary Alumnae, CLASS Alumni Award of Distinction for Scholarly or Creative Activity

CLASS Alumni Award of Distinction for Professional Practice

The distinction for professional practice is awarded to alumni who are highly skilled practitioners in their field. These are people who make a difference in the lives of people every day through their craft and deep understanding of the human condition. 

Dan Ward

Dan Ward, ’07, graduated from the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences with a Bachelor of Science and a major in history. He is co-founder and president of Detroit Labs, a custom software product design and engineering firm founded in downtown Detroit in 2011. He has spent his career building and leading teams that help organizations grow through software development, product design, and user-centered technology. Under his leadership, Detroit Labs has partnered with brands like GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Domino’s, and Jimmy John’s to solve complex problems at the intersection of design, engineering, and business strategy. He also mentors student founders at Central Michigan University and serves on boards at CMU and the CMU Research Corporation.

CLASS Alumni Award of Distinction for Scholarly or Creative Activity

The distinction for scholarly or creative activity is awarded to alumni who have contributed to our understanding of the human condition. They are experts in their field and share their knowledge widely.

Rhonda Welsh

Honorary alum Rhonda Welsh was a Custer Elementary School fifth grade student when she joined thousands of other Detroit Public Schools students in buying a brick to help build the Charles H. Wright Museum’s new facility. She’s been hooked on building community ever since. She now serves as executive director for Detroit Outreach at Central Michigan University. She has extensive experience in community relations, media relations, marketing communications, and training and development, and has held high-profile positions at Wayne State University, College for Creative Studies, St. John Health, American Heart Association and University Liggett School. She earned a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Public Relations and Organizational Communication from Wayne State University.

In 2021, Welsh was appointed to the Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs and named a Michigan Chronicle Women of Excellence honoree. An avid arts and culture enthusiast, Welsh is a writer, poet and DJ. She is the author of the poetry collections Red Clay Legacy and Musings of an Adult Onset Swan and the new novel Pearl, as well as a contributing essayist to Heaven Was Detroit: From Jazz to Hip Hop and Beyond. She was the only poet asked to perform during the Detroit Institute of Arts reopening ceremonies, where she presented a two-week retrospective of African and African-American poetry during the donor and community opening festivities. She has performed throughout metro Detroit at venues including The Carr Center, Detroit Opera House, Scarab Club, Detroit Artists Market, the Wright Museum, Campus Martius and Wayne State University, as well as nationally and internationally. In 2006, she produced her debut spoken-word CD, I Saw Myself. Welsh resides in metro Detroit, where she continues to write, perform, build community and tell stories through words and music.