Dawson To Join Afro-American Studies

Just as the foundations of Harvard’s Afro-American studies department appeared most unstable, the appointment of political scientist Michael C. Dawson has brought timely reinforcement to the “dream team.”

Dawson—who has been the chair of the University of Chicago political science department since 1998 and is the director of the university’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture—has accepted a joint appointment in Harvard’s Afro-American studies and government departments.

Dawson’s appointment became public on the heels of Friday’s announcement by Carswell Professor of Afro-American Studies K. Anthony Appiah that he will leave for Princeton next fall.

Though Appiah cited personal reasons for his departure, his exit follows a much-publicized spat between University President Lawrence H. Summers and Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 that has led to speculation that West and other members of the Afro-American studies department were considering leaving Harvard.

Dawson, who received his doctorate from Harvard’s government department in 1986, said his decision to leave Chicago was influenced by Harvard’s collection of top academics in Afro-American studies that department chair and DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. has assembled over the past decade.

“He will be a major figure in the department,” Gates said. “He is the leading black political scientist in the world and a leading scholar of black politics. He would be a great leader of the department one day.”

According to Tishman and Diker Professor of Sociology and of Afro-American Studies Lawrence D. Bobo, Dawson’s arrival bolsters the social sciences within the Afro-American studies department.

“I think we can say with absolute conviction that Harvard is now the single strongest place for social science research in the African-American community,” Bobo said.

“I think he’s a fantastic teacher and will be an inspiration to both undergraduates and graduate students,” he said.

Bobo has collaborated with Dawson on several academic works, including a current project studying black American civil society.

“He brings a strong political science background—that is something we

didn’t have,” said Professor of History and Afro-American Studies Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham.

“We’re very excited about his coming and it takes a little bit of the pain away about losing professor Appiah—but it doesn’t take all of it away,” she said.

Dawson said he had decided to come to Harvard before December, when the controversy over Summers’ comments to West broke.

Although Dawson said he was unaffected by the controversy, he did not hesitate to take a stand on the issue.

“It’s important for Harvard and the American academy in general to acknowledge the great contributions that African-American scholars have made,” Dawson said. “It’s important that the [Afro-American studies] department continue to receive the strong institutional support that it’s received in the past.”

Dawson said he was happy at the University of Chicago but the better job prospects in the Boston area for both him and his wife, epidemiologist Alice Furumoto-Dawson, were a factor in luring him to Cambridge.

In addition to his expertise in political science, Dawson worked as an engineer and programmer for nine years in Silicon Valley.

He teaches a class at Chicago called “Democracy and the Information Technology Revolution” and said that he plans to teach a similar class at Harvard.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Jonathan H. Esensten can be reached at esensten@fas.harvard.edu.