In 1963, Hughes was elected by his peers to serve as the 53rd President of the American Sociological Association. His Presidential Address, entitled "Race Relations and the Sociological Imagination," was delivered on August 28, 1963 at the Association's Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. This address was later published in the December 1963 issue of American Sociological Review (ASR Vol. 28 No. 6 pp 879–890). In 1964, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1966, he received an honorary doctorate from Sir George Williams University, which later became Concordia University. In 1974, he was awarded the Malinowski Award (see external links).The American Sociological Association, also cited him in 1982 for his contributions to education. His contributions to the training of sociologists during his time in McGill and in Chicago are well-known (Chapoulie 1996, Helmes-Hayes 1998, 2000, Abbott 1999), but his mentorship and teaching at Brandeis are also acclaimed (Homstrom 1984, Conrad et al. 1995, Weiss 1996). Indeed, he still advised students at Boston College when he was in his late seventies (Manning 2000).