UNC sociologist who studies race and gender is one of the 2020 ‘Genius Grant’ winners
UNC sociologist, writer and scholar Tressie McMillan Cottom has been named a fellow in the Class of 2020 by the MacArthur Foundation.
In announcing the winners, the foundation described McMillan Cottom’s work as “shaping discourse on pressing issues at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology. In work across multiple platforms, ranging from academic scholarship to essays and social media engagement, McMillan Cottom combines analytical insights and personal experiences in a frank, accessible style of communication that resonates with broad audiences within and outside of academia.”
The foundation cited a book-length study McMillan Cottom produced on for-profit colleges in 2017, “Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy,” exploring the rapid growth of those universities in the context of rising inequality in the U.S.
McMillan Cottom, 43, once worked as an admissions counselor at a for-profit institution. Her study identified conditions in higher education that support predatory marketing behavior by for-profit schools, including limited access to public colleges, credit discrimination and the increasing need to have college credentials in order to succeed.
“The book has reverberated amongst educators and policymakers and has influenced recent policy debates about the racial, gender, and class inequalities of educational institutions,” the foundation found.
It also cited McMillan Cottom’s most recent book, “THICK: And Other Essays,” a 2019 collection it says offers “a powerful treatise on the perilous cultural space occupied by Black women in America. “
The book is made up of personal essays and meditations on the lens through which black women are viewed in American society, the foundation said.
McMillan Cottom is a graduate of N.C. Central University and has a doctorate from Emory University. She joined UNC in July as an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science and is a member of the senior research faculty in the center for Information, Technology and Public Life.
She was affiliated with the Department of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2015 to 2020 and has been a faculty affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University since 2015, according to her biography.
She edited issues of “Digital Sociologies” and “For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education,” and she has written for Slate, The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Inside Higher Ed.
Cecilia Conrad, managing director of the MacArthur Fellows, said in announcing the winners of this year’s grants that, “In the midst of civil unrest, a global pandemic, natural disasters, and conflagrations, this group of 21 exceptionally creative individuals offers a moment for celebration. They are asking critical questions, developing innovative technologies and public policies, enriching our understanding of the human condition, and producing works of art that provoke and inspire us.”
In a video accompanying the announcement, McMillan Cottom said, “I care about how societies function. And as a writer I care deeply about re-imagining how societies function so that they might function better for the least and the most marginalized among us.”
As a result of her work, McMillan Cottom said, she hopes that the public will come to expect to hear complex African American women’s voices as voices of authority and expertise.
MacArthur Fellows are selected for their “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.” Being named a MacArthur Fellow comes with a cash award, often referred to as the “Genius Grant,” of $625,000 distributed over five years.
The Class of 2020 also includes Fred Motem, a cultural theorist and poet in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, who once taught at Duke University.
At least 14 North Carolinians have been named MacArthur Fellows in the past, including the Rev. William J. Barber II, pastor of a Goldsboro church and cofounder of the National Poor People’s Campaign, which draws attention to policies that disproportionately affect low-income Americans; Kevin Guskiewiscz, chancellor of UNC and a sports researcher who has studied brain injuries in athletes; Rhiannon Giddens, a folk and country music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist; and Robert H. Hall, a writer and researcher who helped disabled mill workers get compensation for brown lung disease and establish federal standards for cotton dust exposure.
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 1:45 PM.
