The John W. Porter Distinguished Chair in Urban Education in the COE is named for John W. Porter, former EMU president and state superintendent of public instruction. It is the first endowed chair in the COE. The C. S. Mott Foundation and the MacGregor Foundation largely funded the chair. The chair is designed to actively expand the University’s role in urban school districts in Michigan, with an emphasis on school/community relations.
Typically, one visiting professor occupies the Porter Chair for one year and makes periodic visits to campus. This year, the COE reconfigured the format to provide opportunit variety of scholars through a “Speaker Series” format.
Our 2005-2006 Speak Series featured:
- Donna Ford, professor of special education and the Betts Chair of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University
- Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General
- Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and director of the Civil Rights Project
- James Earl Davis, professor in the department of educational leadership and policy studies at Temple University
