NEWS
NORMAN, Okla. — The United States Department of the Interior awarded University of Oklahoma professor Drew Kershen its Citizen’s Award for Exceptional Service.
Kershen, the Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law Emeritus in the OU College of Law, received this award for his “contributions to public service in support of the Upper Washita and Upper Red River Basin Studies for the Bureau of Reclamation.”
“The water law report that I prepared for the Bureau of Reclamation became a capstone project to my career as a water law teacher and practitioner," Kershen said. “I am grateful to the Bureau for giving me the opportunity to participate in its river basin studies on the Upper Red and Washita Rivers of Oklahoma. I am now humbled that the Bureau considers the report to be worthy of a Citizen’s Award for Exceptional Service. I am so very proud of the work that the Bureau, its partners, and I accomplished.”
Kershen wrote an academic-level legal evaluation of the water management strategies and the water rights of four Reclamation reservoirs in western Oklahoma – Fort Cobb, Foss, Lugert-Altus and Tom Steed. In its citation, Reclamation described the legal review “as a legacy body of work that promises to inform water management for decades to come.” The Kershen legal review can be found here.
“Dr. Drew L. Kershen was selected to conduct a legal review, academic review and report on the history and evolution of the fundamental statues and case law that govern groundwater and stream water in a manner that has affected or could affect Oklahoma Reclamation projects,” the citation states. “For his many significant accomplishments, Dr. Drew L. Kershen is granted the Citizen’s Award for Exceptional Service of the Department of the Interior.”
In November 2023, the Oklahoma Governor’s Water Conference honored Kershen with the Oklahoma Water Pioneer Award for his Reclamation legal review and his thirty plus years of teaching, writing and professional work related to Oklahoma water law and water management.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit ou.edu.
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The Native Nations Center for Tribal Policy Research at the University of Oklahoma will launch its first Sovereign Policy Intensive in September, a new program designed for elected tribal officials that focuses on understanding broadly relevant federal systems grounded in departmental structures, legislation and appropriations, and legal frameworks.
