To register for the Fifteenth Annual AERA Brown Lecture in Education Research with H. Rich Milner IV, please click here. 

H. Richard Milner IV (also known as Rich) returned to Vanderbilt University after five years at the University of Pittsburgh.  Currently, he is Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Professor Milner spent five years as Helen Faison Endowed Chair of Urban Education, Professor of Education, and by courtesy Professor of Sociology, Professor of Social Work, and Professor of Africana Studies as well as Director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh.  Professor Milner began his career at Vanderbilt University where he was appointed Lois Autrey Betts Associate Professor of Education and Associate Professor of Education in the Departments of Teaching and Learning and, by courtesy, Associate Professor of Leadership, Policy and Organizations as well as a founding director of the graduate program, Learning, Diversity and Urban Studies at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.  At Vanderbilt, in 2008, he became the first Black person to earn promotion and tenure in the entire College of Education’s history. His research, teaching and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education.  In particular, Professor Milner’s research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools.    

Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published six books. His book, published in 2010 by Harvard Education Press, is: Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms, which represents years of research and development effort. The book is widely read in teacher education programs and school districts across the United States of America.  This book has been recognized with two major awards: (1) the 2012 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Outstanding Book Award, and (2) a 2011 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award. He is also author of Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools was published in 2015 by Harvard Education Press. His most recent book is a coauthored text, “These kids are out of control:” Why we must reimagine “classroom management” for equity. In 2017, Professor Milner became the founding Series Editor of the Harvard Education Press Series on Race and Education.

In 2006, Professor Milner received an Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association, the world’s largest educational research organization.  Over the last five years, Professor Milner has appeared on the top 200 Edu-Scholar Public Presence Ranking, published by Education Week (#95 in 2013, #88 in 2014, #89 in 2015, #61 in 2016, and #69 in 2017). His work has been cited or featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Atlantic, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Huffington Post, National Public Radio (NPR), National Education Association Today, Educational Leadership, and Education Week.   

In 2012, Professor Milner was honored with The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2015, at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Professor Milner was honored with a 2015 and 2017 Outstanding Reviewer Award for his work on the editorial board of Educational Researcher. He was also awarded the 2015 American Educational Research Association’s Division K Award for Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education (2015). In 2016, he became a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. He was also awarded the John Dewey Society Outstanding Achievement Award (2016) for his scholarship bridging theory into practice in the spirit of John Dewey.  Fall 2018, Professor Milner will deliver the prestigious Brown lecture of the American Educational Research Association.

Currently, he is Editor-in-chief of Urban Education and co-editor of the Handbook of Urban Education, published with Routledge Press in 2014. In the fall of 2015, the Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education assigned his book, Rac(e)ing to Class, to all incoming graduate students and invited alumni across the world to read the book. He was then invited to deliver a prestigious Askwith Lecture at Harvard University, where he discussed research and findings from his book.

During the summer of 2010, Professor Milner was honored with a Visiting Scholar Fellowship at York University in Toronto, Canada, where he taught in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program. Also during the summers of 2010, 2011 and 2013, he served as a Visiting Faculty member in the department of Policy and Leadership at the University of Texas-Austin. Summer 2016, Professor Milner was invited to teach a summer course on Race and Poverty in the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington.  In 2012, Dr. Milner served as a Visiting Scholar of the Graduate School of Education’s Scholars of Color Symposium Series at the University of Pennsylvania.

But most importantly, Professor Milner has been married for 13 years and is the proud father of seven-year old twin daughters, Anna Grace and Elise Faith.