Vanderbilt University has scored a major coup in luring Dr. Michael Eric Dyson—one of the nation’s most prominent Black intellectuals—from Georgetown University.
Dyson will hold the Centennial Chair and serve as University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Science and University Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Divinity School beginning on Jan. 1, 2021.
In an interview, Dyson—who is also an ordained Baptist preacher—said that Dr. Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whitting, who is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt, was instrumental in recruiting him to the private research university. Sharpley-Whitting served as Dyson’s teaching assistant when he was an assistant professor at Brown University from 1992 to 1994.
“It was because of her that all of this got started and it happened very quickly,” he said, adding that the chance to reconnect with a former colleague, and join an institution that’s doing “some exciting and interesting things,” including “making a concerted effort to really recruit faculty of color, is all a good thing.”
A productive scholar who has authored more than 20 books, including the forthcoming Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, Dyson is currently the University Professor—holding Georgetown’s highest professorial rank—and is a visible commentator on television.
Dyson’s interdisciplinary approach to scholarship has won him fans both in and out of the academy, as he has engaged diverse topics and subjects ranging from Jay-Z and Tupac Shakur to White supremacy and homophobia.
In announcing his appointment, Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Dr. Daniel Diermeier said that the university was fortunate to add Dyson to its faculty.
