1. Rita was one of the 100 students to Win the Presidential Scholar in 1970, before attending Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio as a National Achievement Scholar.
2. Graduated with degree in english in 1973.
3. She then joined the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977.
4.Published First poetry collection in 1980, The Yellow House on the Corner, with Carnegie-Mellon University
Press .
5.It was followed by Museum (1983) and Thomas and Beulah (1986). Thomas and Beulah earned her
the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. She was the second Afrian American to win this renouned award.
6. Rita's poetry has earned her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1978 and 1989), the Guggenheim
Foundation (1983-84) and the National Humanities Center (1988-89), among others.
7. In 1993 Rita was named poet laureate of the United States, the youngest person ever to be appointed this post.
8."Literary Lion" medals from the New York Public Library in 1990 and 1996 as well as its "Library Lion" medal in 2000
9. 21 honorary doctorates — from Miami University, Knox College, Tuskegee University, University of Miami, Washington
University, Case Western Reserve University, The University of Akron, Arizona State University, Boston College, Dartmouth
College, Spelman College, The University of Pennsylvania, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University
of Notre Dame, Northeastern University, Columbia University, SUNY Brockport, Washington & Lee University, Howard University,
the Pratt Institute, and Skidmore College.
10.In 1993 Ms. Dove was named one of ten "Outstanding Women of the Year" by Glamour magazine.
11. The NAACP honored her with its Great American Artist Award.
12. In 1994she was honored by the Folger Shakespeare Library's Renaissance Forum Award for Leadership in the
Literary Arts.
13. The Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement.
14. The Carl Sandburg Award from the International Platform Association.
15. She also received the 1996 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, one of the largest cash prizes in the world.
16. In 1996 she won the Charles Frankel Prize / National Humanities Medal, the U.S. Government's highest honor for
writers and scholars.
17. In1997 she won the Sara Lee Frontrunner Award. Also, in 1997 Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers Award.
18. In 1998 she won Levinson Prize from Poetry Magazine.
19. A nomination for the Year 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award for On the Bus With Rosa Parks, which
was listed as one of "25 Books to Remember from 1999" by the New York Public Library.
20. And in 2008 the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia.
