March 2018
Vanessa Siddle Walker, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Educational Studies at Emory University, has been voted president-elect of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She joins AERA Council this year as President-elect. Her term as president begins on April 9, 2019, at the conclusion of AERA’s 2019 Annual Meeting.
Click here for complete 2018 AERA election results
For more than 25 years, Walker has explored the segregated schooling of African American children, considering sequentially the climate that permeated segregated schools, the network of professional collaborations that explains the similarity across schools, and the hidden systems of advocacy that demanded equality and justice for the children in the schools.
Her research has garnered a number of awards, including the prestigious Grawmeyer Award for Education and the AERA Early Career Award. In addition, she has received awards from the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools, the American Education Studies Association, and three awards from AERA Divisions, including Best New Female Scholar, Best New Book, and Outstanding Book.
In 2012, Walker presented the AERA Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research in Washington, D.C. Her talk, titled “Original Intent: Black Educators in an Elusive Quest for Justice” (webcast |full text in Educational Researcher), was delivered to a packed house. She is an AERA Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Education.
Walker’s current research project, Hidden Provocateurs, brings to light the history of black educators in the fight for justice for black children. It examines black educators’ activities to demand equality in the generations before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, their interconnected story with the Brown decision, and their continued advocacy after the ruling.
Her book based on the project, Hidden Provocateurs: Black Educators in a Century of Secret Struggle, is currently under contract. Walker has authored and edited several other prominent scholarly books, including Hello Professor: A Black Principal and Professional Leadership in the Segregated South and Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South.
Upon becoming AERA president in 2019, Walker will succeed Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Wells will assume the AERA presidency on April 17, 2018, after the close of the association’s 2018 Annual Meeting in New York City.
Key Members Elected to AERA Council
Along with voting in Walker as AERA president-elect, AERA members selected several new AERA Council representatives.
Council Members-at-Large
Two other prominent scholars were elected to member-at-large positions on the AERA Council, commencing in 2018–2019. They will serve three-year terms.
- Amanda L. Datnow, University of California, San Diego
- Maisha T. Winn, University of California, Davis
Winn was also elected to the Executive Board.
Division Vice Presidents-Elect
Four education researchers were voted as division vice presidents-elect and will join AERA’s 2019–2020 Council at the conclusion of the 2019 Annual Meeting. They will serve three-year terms.
- Division E: Counseling and Human Development
Sarah M. Kiefer, University of South Florida
- Division J: Postsecondary Education
Vasti Torres, University of Michigan
- Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education
Dorothea M. Anagnostopoulos, University of Connecticut
- Division L: Educational Policy and Politics
Janelle T. Scott, University of California, Berkeley
SIG Executive Committee
Two new members have been elected to the SIG Executive Committee. They will serve three-year terms.
- Kathy A. Ganske, Vanderbilt University
- Arturo Olivarez Jr., University of Texas at El Paso
Graduate Student Council
Desa Karye Daniel, a doctoral student at the University of New Mexico, was voted chair-elect of the Graduate Student Council (GSC) and will join the AERA Council in 2019-2020 as the GSC representative.