CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - James D. Anderson, the Gutsgell Professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education, considered the highest honor in the field of educational scholarship.
Anderson, an educational historian, is the author of "The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935" (1988), which received the Outstanding Book Award that year from the American Educational Research Association. He has written numerous published articles and book chapters on the history of education, and has been an adviser and on-air expert for several Public Broadcasting Service documentaries, including "School: The Story of American Public Education" (2001) and "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" (2002).
Anderson also has served as an expert witness in a series of federal desegregation cases, as well as for the University of Michigan affirmative action case, Gratz v. Michigan, that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anderson earned his master's degree and doctorate at Illinois, following a bachelor's from Stillman College. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1974 and has been the head of the department of educational policy studies since 1994.
He is the senior editor of the journal "History of Education Quarterly" and this spring received the Distinguished Career Contributions Award from the American Educational Research Association's Committee on Scholars of Color in Education.
Anderson is one of two current faculty members in the College of Education to receive NAE membership, joining educational psychology professor Richard C. Anderson.
Anderson's election, along with that of five others, was announced early last month. He will attend his first annual meeting of the academy in October.