Harvard's Lawrence Bobo and Marcyliena Morgan to join Stanford's faculty

Stanford University has appointed two nationally renowned professors in the area of African American studies, Lawrence Bobo and Marcyliena Morgan, to its faculty. Bobo and Morgan, who are married, will pursue scholarship in their own departments as well as at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE).

Bobo will join Stanford as a professor of sociology and become director of CCSRE. He is currently the Norman Tishman and Charles M. Diker Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. His research interests include racial attitudes and relations, social psychology, public opinion and political behavior. He is the author of numerous books and articles and was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Morgan will join Stanford as an associate professor of communication. She is currently an associate professor of African and African American studies at Harvard. Her research has focused on language, culture and identity, sociolinguistics, discourse and interaction. She is the founder and director of the Hip Hop Archive and author of Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture.

Provost John Etchemendy called the appointments "very good news for the university and very good news for CCSRE. Larry and Marcy are scholars who excel in both research and teaching. I am extremely eager for my colleagues on the faculty and Stanford students to have the opportunity to share in the dynamic intellectual energy they will bring to our campus."

Sharon Long, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, said Stanford's combination of disciplinary and interdisciplinary strengths makes this an excellent fit for Bobo's and Morgan's academic work.

"CCSRE and the new Research Institute on the Social Sciences are examples of programs that connect faculty and students from multiple departments, and from the other schools at Stanford," Long said. "Given the increasing importance in the social sciences of combining disciplinary strength with multidisciplinary perspectives, we are very excited about the contributions Marcy and Larry are sure to make."

Claude Steele, the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences and CCSRE's current director, said he was "thrilled that Larry Bobo and Marcy Morgan will be joining our center. Larry is one of the nation's chief experts on racial attitudes and the progress of racial integration, and Marcy is one of the nation's foremost experts on African American culture and language."

The Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity brings scholarly and scientific work on race and ethnicity of many fields into programmatic focus through its comparative approach. The undergraduate program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity has more than 90 student majors and minors. More than 100 faculty members from a wide range of departments are affiliated with the center.

-30-