Coyle Professor of Literacy Education, University of Notre Dame
ERNEST MORRELL is Coyle Professor of Literacy Education and the Director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame. He was formerly the Macy Professor of English Education and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a past-president of the National Council of Teachers of English, and an appointed member of the International Literacy Association’s Research Panel. In 2016, Ernest was ranked among the top 100 university-based education scholars in the RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. His scholarly interests include: (1) literacy studies (2) socially, culturally, and digitally relevant pedagogy, (3) new directions in the Teaching of English (4) education in the African Diaspora, and (5) youth popular culture in the digital age. Ernest has written more than 75 articles and book chapters and he has authored eight books including New Directions in Teaching English, Doing Youth Participatory Research, The Art of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth, and Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools, which was awarded Outstanding Academic Title for 2014 by Choice Magazine of the American Library Association. Ernest has earned numerous commendations for his university teaching including UCLA’s Department of Education’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He received his B.A. in English Literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his teaching credential, his M.A. and his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of California, Berkeley where he was the recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation award in 2001. Ernest is chair of the Planning and Advisory Committee for the African Diaspora Consortium and he sits on the Executive Boards of LitWorld and the Education for Democracy Institute.