Jackson Named Morris Endowed Chair at Eastern Michigan University

March 26, 2015

Jerlando F. L. Jackson, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education in UW–Madison’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in the School of Education, will serve as the 2014-15 Michael G. Morris Endowed Chair at Eastern Michigan University. Jackson will remain in his posts at UW–Madison during the year-long special appointment.

The Morris Endowed Chair is designed to help EMU better understand and improve the experience of Black males on campus. The award provides up to $50,000 for outstanding visiting faculty performing in the top echelons in their disciplines or professional fields to assist the Eastern Michigan University College of Education faculty, staff and students in developing the knowledge, research and capacity needed to enhance and transform the field of education.

Jackson, who also serves as the director and chief research scientist for Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB), part of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), will work on a project at EMU titled “Enhancing Institutional Capacity: Transforming EMU into a Thought Leading Center.”

“I am proud to support Jerlando Jackson’s appointment to the Morris Endowed Chair at Eastern Michigan University,” UW–Madison School of Education Dean Julie Underwood said. “Jerlando is a leading scholar in the study of black males in higher education. His knowledge of methods for making institutions of higher education more welcoming and appreciative of their students and employees of color, and for encouraging their success, will undoubtedly be a boon to EMU as it continues to be for UW–Madison.”

Jackson will be assisted by LaVar J. Charleston, Wei LAB’s assistant director and senior research associate, who will serve as project coordinator. Raúl A. León, an assistant professor in educational leadership at Eastern Michigan University, will act as project collaborator. León earned his doctorate at UW-Madison in 2012 in educational leadership and policy analysis.

As part of the project, Jackson presented two lectures at EMU during the Spring 2015 semester. He gave the first, “Understanding Key Challenges of African American Men in the Academic Workforce,” on Wednesday, Feb. 18. The second, “Ethnic and Racial Administrative Diversity: Understanding Work Life Realities and Experiences in U.S. Higher Education,” took place on March 9.