Black women faculty in new roles are Sherine Obare at Western Michigan University, Erinn Tucker at Georgetown University, Alyssa L. Harris at Boston College, Reena N. Goldthree at Princeton University, Carolyn Gentle-Genitty at IUPUI, and Eleanor Brown at Pennsylvania State University.
Ruth Simmons, who served as the 18th president of Brown University, the Ivy League educational institution in Providence, Rhode Island, from 2001 to 2012, has been named the interim president of Prairie View A&M University in Texas.
Dr. Jarrett has been serving as associate dean of the faculty in the humanities division at Boston University in Massachusetts. There, he has also been a professor of English and a professor of African American studies.
Tracy Smith is the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, and director of the university’s Program in Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts. She joined the faculty at Princeton in 2005.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University, cancelled a series of public events after she received death threats after she gave the commencement address at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.
Rachel L. Swarns will join the faculty at New York University. Jennifer Hamer, a professor at the University of Kansas, will serve as vice provost for diversity. Autumn Womack was hired to the faculty at Princeton and Ibram X. Kendi is joining the faculty at American University.
William R. Scott was a professor emeritus of history at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He joined the faculty at Lehigh University as a full professor in 1992 and served as the first director of the university’s African American studies program.
Dr. Dwight McBride is the Daniel Hale Williams Professor of African American studies, English, and Performance Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. There, he also serves as dean of the Graduate School and associate provost for graduate education.
Princeton University in New Jersey has announced that West College, one of the oldest buildings on campus, will be renamed to honor professor emerita Toni Morrison. And an auditorium will be renamed to honor professor emeritus Sir Arthur Lewis. Both scholars are Nobel Prize winners.
Valerie Smith, president of the highly rated Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, was the recipient of an honorary doctor of letters degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. Dr. Smith was honored for her work on diversity, inclusion, and curricular innovation during her first year as president of the Swarthmore.
The award was established in 1958 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to recognize lifetime achievement in literature. Professor Morrison will be honored at a ceremony in April in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The three African American faculty members appointed to new positions are Donald R. Easton-Brooks of the University of South Dakota, Tiphanie Yanique at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and Laurence Ralph at Princeton University in New Jersey.
A decade ago, there were 1,110 Black students in the entering classes at the eight Ivy League schools. In 2016, there are 1,503, a 35 percent increase. Four of the eight Ivy League schools have an entering class that is more than 11 percent Black. A decade ago, the leader stood at 9.6 percent.
In 2002, Cornel West left Harvard University after a public dispute with then Harvard president Lawrence Summers. Now, according to published reports, Dr. West is returning to Harvard University as professor of the practice of public philosophy.
Danielle Allen was appointed the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, effective January 1. This is the highest honor bestowed on a faculty member at Harvard. Currently there are 24 University Professors at Harvard.
Taking on new roles are Van Bailey at the University of Miami, Maria Arvelo Lumpkin at Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Terence Peavy at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Barbara Hampton at Princeton University in New Jersey, and Keyana Scales at Xavier University of Louisiana.
Taking on new assignments are Chalres DeSassure at Tarrant County College, Debbie Owens at Murray State University, Kalenda Eaton at Arcadia University, Tameka Winston at Tennessee State University, Jason Mott at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Shennette Garrett-Scott of the University of Mississippi.
“Ban the Box” legislation prohibits potential employers from asking job applicants to check a box if they have criminal records. But a new university study finds that if employers don’t have information about criminal records, they are more likely to rely on their assumptions and racial biases.
The study found that 30 percent of all callers seeking to make an appointment with a mental health care provider received a return call to make an appointment. But Black men were called back only 13 percent of the time and Black women had their calls returned 21 percent of the time.
This year, 54 Truman scholars were selected from 775 candidates nominated by 305 colleges and universities. Of this year’s 54 Truman Scholars, it appears that nine, or 16.7 percent, are Black Americans.
Critics had called for name changes due to Wilson’s actions in denying the admission of Black students to Princeton while he served as the educational institution’s president and for his resegregation of the federal workforce in Washington, D.C. after he became president of the United States.
Andrew G. Campbell was named dean of the Graduate School at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and LaTanya Buck was named dean for diversity and inclusion at Princeton University in New Jersey.
The lecture series was endowed in 1925 with the honoree designated as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for the duration of the six-lecture series. Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate and professor emerita at Princeton University, is this year’s honoree.
Professor Gallimore joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1992. He was promoted to full professor in 2004. Dr. Gallimore is the director of the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, funded by NASA and the director of the Michigan/Air Force Center of Excellence in Electric Propulsion.
Since 2011, Dr. Williams has served as the Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Public Health and chair of the department of epidemiology at the school. Earlier she taught at the University of Washington.
Cato T. Laurencin has been selected by President Obama as one of seven winners of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He is the only African American among the seven winners of the award this year.
Walter Wallace taught sociology at Princeton University for 30 years. At Princeton, Professor Wallace was the faculty adviser for the senior thesis of Michelle Robinson, who is now First Lady of the United States.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad was appointed professor of history, race, and public policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and Desmond Jagmohan was named an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University.
After 1998, death rates among middle-aged White non-Hispanic Americans began to rise at a steady clip of half a percent per year. For non-Hispanic, middle-aged African-Americans, mortality rates declined 2.6 percent per year.
Toni Morrison, professor emerita at Princeton University, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. In 1993, she was the first African American woman to win a Nobel Prize. On October 5, she received the UCLA Medal for “distinguished academic and professional achievement.”
Dr. Curvin served as dean of the Milano School of Management and Urban Policy at the New School and as a senior policy fellow at the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
Jennifer L. Baszile was named director of the nation’s oldest and largest organization dedicated to the success of underrepresented students on liberal arts college campuses nationwide. She previously served on the faculty at the University of Connecticut and Yale University.
Professor Smith has taught creative writing at the university since 2005. Earlier, she taught at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. In 2012, she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Here is this week’s roundup of African Americans who have been appointed to new administrative positions at colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Angel L. Harris, a professor of sociology and African and African American studies at Duke University, is launching a new effort called Research on the Education and Development of Youth (REDY). His goal is to provide teachers with the tools to teach students who have different learning styles.
Taking on new faculty roles are Grace Wasike Namwamba at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Deana Lawson at Princeton University, and Constance Iloh at the University of California, Irvine.
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