Dr. Ernest Morrell
The cause was cancer, said the University of Notre Dame, where Morrell was the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education.
A teacher-turned-academic whose classroom experience shaped decades of influential scholarship, Morrell advocated for what he called a "radical reimagination" of the relationship between students and texts. His work centered on empowering young people, particularly those historically underserved by educational systems, to access information, exercise informed citizenship, and participate fully in civic and cultural life.
"Frederick Douglass said that 'education means emancipation, it means life and liberty,'" said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a Notre Dame law professor. "I can think of no one whose life better reflected those words."
Morrell's influence extended across academic and professional circles. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024, joining a class that included actor George Clooney and Apple CEO Tim Cook. He was also an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. For the past decade, Education Week included him in its annual Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, recognizing academics with the greatest impact on educational practice and policy.
In 2025, he received the James R. Squire Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, a prestigious honor given only 31 times since 1967. Morrell had served as NCTE president in 2014 and directed its James R. Squire Office on Policy Research since 2020.
Ernest Morrell Jr. was born April 27, 1971. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1993, followed by a California teaching credential in 1994. While teaching English at Oakland High School, he pursued graduate studies at UC Berkeley, earning a master's degree in education in 1997 and a Ph.D. in language, literacy and culture in 2001.
That experience as a high school teacher in Oakland grounded his scholarship in classroom practice and shaped his lifelong commitment to supporting educators and students. His scholarly interests spanned critical pedagogy, postcolonial studies, and global youth popular culture.
Morrell held faculty appointments at Michigan State University, UCLA, and Columbia University's Teachers College, where he directed the Institute for Urban and Minority Education before joining Notre Dame in 2017. At Notre Dame, he served as associate dean for the humanities and faculty development in the College of Arts & Letters while directing the Center for Literacy Education.
"Ernest cultivated a true 'family tree' of scholars whose work began with his guidance," said Dr. Maria McKenna, a Notre Dame professor who worked with him. He was known for publishing with his doctoral students before they defended their dissertations, helping launch their careers through collaborative partnership.
He authored more than 100 articles and book chapters and wrote or edited 17 scholarly books, garnering over 11,000 scholarly citations. His "Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools" (2013) received the Outstanding Academic Title award from Choice magazine. This January, just weeks before his death, he published "Critical English Education: Enduring Voices, New Perspectives" with NCTE, directing all royalties to support English education.
In his 2014 NCTE presidential address, Morrell called for embracing multicultural America "not as a challenge but as our strength" and urged educators to look to "the classes of tomorrow today"—the most wonderful teaching happening in classrooms—as models.
"There's a lot that we'll talk about in terms of technical aspects of literacy instruction," he told first-time convention attendees in 2018, "but you have to remember it's the impact you have on people's lives through love that makes you special."
Morrell also founded and led Desert Highway Music, which produced blues and folk music to preserve American art forms.
Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd announced that Morrell would posthumously receive the university's 2026 President's Award for his "intellectually ambitious, socially consequential work centered on a humanistic vision of education."
Morrell is survived by his wife, Dr. Jodene Morrell, a teaching professor and associate director of Notre Dame's Center for Literacy Education, and their sons Skip, Antonio, and Tripp.
