Go North, Young West? That's The Af-Am Talk

Amidst rumors that black studies scholar Cornel R. West ’74 may return to Harvard, members of the African and African American Studies Department said yesterday that the issue has been a topic of discussion among faculty.

Jayne Professor of Government and of Af-Am Jennifer L. Hochschild said last night that West’s possible homecoming had been in talks since the spring.

“We’ve been talking about this on and off in the past six months...that it might come up in the fall,” she said.

The department has a faculty meeting scheduled for mid-October.

West left Harvard in 2002 after a highly publicized tiff with then-University President Lawrence H. Summers. Departing for Princeton—where he was once a graduate student—he took a post as Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion. And while Princeton announced plans to establish a Center for African American Studies last week, the New Jersey school may lose a valued academic in the field.

“Last spring, it was the subject of conversation, and we definitely want him back,” Professor of Anthropology and of Af-Am J. Lorand Matory ’82 said of West. “He’s so smart, so popular, he’s the kind of person anyone would want to have at his university.”

But Af-Am Chair Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham said that West’s return was speculation.

“We certainly love West, and we’d certainly love to have him back,” she said. But “it’s definitely a rumor.”

West could not be reached for comment.

NEW FACES, NEW PLACES

If West does return, he’ll see an entirely new W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, of which he was an affiliate during his tenure at Harvard.

The nearly 300 alumni who are slated to show up at the Institute’s open house today will find themselves in its year-old, three-floor, 10,000 square foot home at 104 Mt. Auburn St., greeted by Institute Director Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. and the newly named Associate Director, Roland G. Fryer Jr.

Fryer, fresh off his three-year term as a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, is in his first year of teaching. The assistant professor of economics also heads the new course, Economics 1816, “Race in America.”

As a scholar who uses mathematical models to study racial inequality, Fryer said his methodology is unusual, and his new affiliation with the Du Bois Institute shows “how wide-ranging and interdisciplinary the Institute is.” He said his research, which some would find “wacky,” will now be “part of the mainstream.”

To Gates, Fryer is a “dear friend” and neighbor who visited him nearly every day, even bringing him food, while the Du Bois Professor of the Humanities was recuperating from leg surgery.

“I think Roland Fryer is one of the most brilliant economists at work in the academy today, he’s certainly the star of his generation...a genius,” Gates said.

Some of the initiatives lined up for the Institute are related to Fryer’s area of research. “Skip and I have a ton of ideas in our head,” he said. The two are hoping to start programs aimed at closing the achievement gap between black and white students. “We’re trying to understand and perhaps help racial differences in test scores by giving incentives to kids in elementary school,” Fryer said.

Karen C. C. Dalton, the Institute’s assistant director, is on medical leave, and William Casey King, the executive director will be leaving his post. King could not be reached for comment last night.

Fryer isn’t the only faculty member taking up a new role at the Institute. Visiting Professor of Af-Am and of Romance Languages and Literatures Francis A. Irele and Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences Tommie Shelby are the new editors of Transition Magazine, the Institute’s official publication. The current executive editor, Michael Vazquez, will be leaving for an editing job in India, according to Gates.

“Transition is a magazine with a long and rich history, and we’re delighted to be able to take up the directorship in its next incarnation,” Shelby said.

Leadership of the Institute’s two journals—Transition and the Du Bois Review—is undergoing reorganization, with Laurie Calhoun now overseeing both publications as director of publications.

Black Alumni Weekend, which runs until Sunday, will feature notable alums such as Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves ‘72 and Soledad M. O’Brien ’88, anchorwoman on CNN’s American Morning. On Saturday, Stephanie K. Bell-Rose ’79, who is a managing director at Goldman Sachs and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, will be delivering the keynote address.

—Staff writer Lulu Zhou can be reached at luluzhou@fas.harvard.edu.