A Trio of Black Scholars Who Are Taking on New Assignments
Filed in Appointments, Faculty on July 1, 2022
Stephen Best is the new director of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Best is a professor in the department of English and holds a courtesy appointment in the department of film and media. He is the author of None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life (Duke University Press, 2018).
Professor Best is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He did his graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, was named interim co-director of the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni at Georgia State University. She has been serving as the pre-Ph.D. faculty associate for the center. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey is an associate professor and the graduate director in the department of Africana studies. She is the author of Pulse of the People: Rap Music and Black Political Attitudes (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey is a graduate of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where she majored in history and political science. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from Ohio State University.
Desmond Upton Patton has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 31st Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor. Dr. Patton, a pioneer in the interdisciplinary fusion of social work, communications, and data science, will be the Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor, with joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication along with a secondary appointment in the department of psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine. He was a professor of social work and sociology at Columbia University.
Dr. Patton is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he majored in anthropology and political science. He holds a master of social work degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Chicago.
