Professor Martin Joseph Ponce has been awarded the University’s Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Awards. This annual award recognizes individuals or groups who have demonstrated a significant commitment to enhancing diversity at Ohio State and to exceeding expectations in implementing the Diversity Action Plan. The program, now in its 26th year, rewards efforts to enhance diversity on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran or military service status, gender identity, economic status, political belief, marital status or social background. Recipients were honored with a plaque and a $1,200 honorarium at a ceremony. The University Senate Committee on Diversity sponsors the award program in cooperation with the Office of Human Resources.

Professor Ponce’s record of diversity "enhancement" at the university is extensive and exemplary. In addition to serving as a leader of DISCO, he is also Coordinator of Asian American Studies, a member of the Oversight Committee for Sexuality Studies, a member of the Faculty Senate Diversity Committee, and Chair of the Arts and Humanities Diversity Committee. Professor Ponce teaches in the fields of Asian American literature, African American literature, and queer studies, and is the author of articles on Filipino and African American writers as well as a new book, Beyond the Nation: Diasporic Filipino Literature and Queer Reading (NYUP 2012).

Previous winners of Distinguished Diversity Award from the English Department are: Chadwick Allen (2011), Debra Moddelmog (2009), Frederick Aldama (2008), Jacqueline J. Royster (2002), Brenda Jo Brueggemann (2001) and John F. Sena (1987)