Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, a 35-year-old Philadelphia native, said he has “always wanted to teach at an HBCU.”
The move by Morehouse to court Hill — a sought-after speaker and television commentator — signals a new and ambitious effort by the Atlanta-based school to aggressively compete with predominantly White institutions for young Black superstar professors.
But for Hill, who spent his freshman year at Morehouse before transferring to Temple University, the decision to return to the nation’s only college for Black males is exciting and personal.
“This isn’t about me leaving Columbia, but about me wanting to go to Morehouse,” said Hill in an interview yesterday with Diverse. “I’ve always wanted to teach at an HBCU and I’m now at a point in my career where I’m able to do that.”
The 35-year-old Philadelphia native is the author of several books including Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity.
A protégé of Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, who served on his dissertation committee while he was pursuing his Ph.D. in education at the University of Pennsylvania, Hill is an activist who has been a vocal critic of mass incarceration and a strong champion of various causes including gay rights.
Before joining the faculty at Columbia’s Teachers College, he was an assistant professor at Temple.
