FAMOUS BLACK COLLEGE PROFESSORS

BLACK

Spike Lee

Kanbar Institute of Film & Television at Tisch School of the Arts in New York City
Artistic director of the Graduate Film Program and the Amy and Joseph Perella Chair
Widely regarded as a premier African-American filmmaker, Lee is a forerunner in the ‘do it your self’ school of independent film. His debut film, the independently produced comedy She’s Gotta Have It, earned him the Prix de Jeunesse Award at the Cannes Film festival in 1986. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, and received his Master of Fine Arts degree in film production at the New York University’s Tisch School of Arts in Manhattan. Lee has won an Emmy Award and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Harvard University
W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor and public intellectual. As a prominent black intellectual, Gates has focused throughout his career on building academic institutions to study black culture. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for black Americans. While Gates already has made a name for himself, he became very well known when he was arrested at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in in 2009. Charges were dropped, but the arrest garnered such national attention that it led to an invitation by President Barack Obama to the White House for a beer to discuss race relations.

Dennis Green

San Diego State University
Teaches course, “Community Building: A Comprehensive Family Centered Approach.”
Former coach of the Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Cardinals, Green now teaches the Sports Business Management MBA program’s Strategic Management course. Green graduated cum laude with a BA in finance from The University of Iowa. According to Green, he was planning to be a high school teacher if his football career didn’t pan out. During the semester, students will work on a major project where they will develop a group presentation suggesting a viable solution to the stadium improvement issue currently facing the city of San Diego and the San Diego Chargers. The proposed solution will be based on classroom interaction with local experts involved with the issue and their own research conducted outside the classroom.

(The Late) Maya Angelou

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Reynolds Professorship of American Studies
Angelou was an American autobiographer and poet who had been called “America’s most visible black female autobiographer.” Angelou was highly honored for her body of work, including being awarded over 30 honorary degrees and the nomination of a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie. From 1991, Angelou taught at Wake Forest University as recipient of the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies, and since the 1990s had made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit. The Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at Wake Forest University School of Medicine is addressing one of the most compelling demographic trends in modern American history — the increasing diversity of the U.S. population.

SOURCE: CollegeStats.org HERE