Professor Donald Tibbs has been named the 2017 Alumnus of the Year in Justice Studies by Arizona State University.

Tibbs earned his PhD from ASU’s School of Social Transformation in 2004, when it was called the School of Justice Studies. Tibbs’ doctoral dissertation on the prisoner union movement in North Carolina formed the basis of a book published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2012, “From Black Power to Prison Power: The Making of Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union.”

In 2015, Tibbs co-authored “Hip Hop and the Law,” a compilation of essays curated through a course and lecture series he developed in 2012.

ASU’s School of Social Transformation will give a scholarship in Tibbs’ honor to a graduate student who is currently pursuing a degree in Justice Studies.