Harvard Hopes New Professor Will Ease Tension

Despite rumors of discontent between the faculty and new administration at Harvard University, African-American studies expert Dr. Michael Dawson of the University of Chicago will be joining the faculty this July.

President Lawerence Summers had experienced trouble with the African-American Studies Department after criticizing professor Cornel West’s involvement with the Rev. Al Sharpton’s presidential exploratory committee.

Summers also criticized West for “allowing grade inflation to undercut the Harvard standard in his popular classes,” The Boston Globe reported.

Harvard is excited to welcome Dawson to the university, said Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of the African-American Studies program.

“He is the leading scholar of black politics in the world, and he is one of the most important scholars in the entire field of political science,” Gates told the Associated Press. “The timing of his coming to us couldn’t be better.”

Dawson will be affiliated with the African-American Studies Department despite being a professor of government, said Leah McIntosh, senior officer of administration in Harvard’s executive dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences department.

“The reaction on campus, just as with any new hire, is one of great pleasure,” McIntosh said.

Dawson, who starts in July, told the AP he is excited about his new position.

“I very much look forward to joining one of the premier research centers in Afro-American studies,” he said.

Dawson received his doctoral degree from Harvard in 1986. As director of the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, his research specializes in African-American political behavior and ideology as compared with white Americans.

He is also the author of an award-winning book, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics, and has published several articles in political science publications.

Harvard’s K. Anthony Appiah, a professor of African-American studies and philosophy, accepted a position at Princeton University. His resignation had caused suspicion due to the recent tensions between Summers and faculty of the that department.

Appiah, however, said he left Harvard for personal reasons and did not experience any tension within the university.

“I have a wonderful job as professor of Afro-American studies and of philosophy at Harvard,” Appiah told the AP. “I have the most cordial relations with my colleagues in the faculty and the administration.”