University of Iowa
Candidate for Executive Council (2027-29)
Candidate statement
I am a Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa and a historian of American education. My research interests are situated within the histories of African American education, Catholic education, and American race relations. I received my BA and MA from Louisiana Tech University and my PhD (Education Policy Studies) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I have been a member of the ACHA for some 15 years.
My current work focuses on the history of Black Catholic education in the South. The history of Catholic education has traditionally revolved around themes that reflect the U.S. Catholic Church’s ties to European immigrant communities, but my research centers Black Catholic schools developed per the 1866 Second Plenary Council into the broader narrative. I am currently completing a book on the rise and fall of Black Catholic schools in the South. It is under contract with New York University Press.
My scholarship on Black Catholic education and history has appeared in The Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium (2021) and (2018); The Journal of African American History (2016); The U.S. Catholic Historian (2015); Using Past as Prologue: Contemporary Perspectives on African American Educational History (Danns, Purdy, Span, 2015); and Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience, (Copeland, 2009). My current research is partially funded by The Louisville Institute, Lilly Endowment.
I have served my other academic organizations and university on numerous committees and boards and believe that experience will lend to my usefulness to the ACHA Executive Committee in supporting, maintaining, and promoting the development of scholarship that situates Catholic histories across various disciplines. For example, I have served the History of Education Society on their Board of Directors, as Book Review Editor for their History of Education Quarterly, and as a co-chair for their Religion and Education Affinity Group. I have also served various roles – appointed and elected – for the American Educational Research Association’s Division of Historical Inquiry in Education (formerly History and Historiography). These AERA roles included Vice-President; Diversity and Equity Representative; and Program Chair and Mentoring Chair for annual conferences. I have also served the Black Catholic Theological Society as their Archivist. I have served and continue to serve my university: two terms on the University of Iowa’s Charter Library Committee and am currently on my second term on our University Presidential Lecture Committee. I am also serving my first term on the Executive Board for our Student Publications Committee. I have also served as a consulting editor and author for The Adam Matthew Digitization Project: American Race Relations, Introduction to Race in America, The Fisk University Race Relations Department (2017).
As a scholar who has slowly “shifted gears” and is finally fully exploring her initial research passions, I understand the roadblocks and pitfalls that often accompany securing historical data and doing historical research. Scholarship often takes much longer than we could have ever imagined. I believe my lived research experience combined with my service and experience on other academic boards and committees lend to my usefulness in supporting, maintaining, and promoting the development of scholarship that situates Catholic histories across various disciplines. I would be honored to serve the ACHA.