Alumnus Profile: Charlotte M. Harris, '91

Charlotte Harris serves as associate professor and dean of the Wright State University College of Education and Human Services. She began her academic career as a teacher of English in Prince George’s County Schools (MD). Now in her 14th year at Wright State, Harris has served as department chair, associate dean, and now as the first woman and the first black dean of the college. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Education at Adelphi University (NY), her Master of Humanities degree at Wright State in 1991, and her Doctor of Education degree in educational foundations at the University of Cincinnati. Harris’s scholarly interests include black feminist thought, education feminism, feminist leadership, diversity issues in education, narrative research, and practitioner inquiry. 

She served as chair of Research on Women and Education (RWE), a special-interest group of the American Educational Research Association (2005–2006), hosting its 31st Annual Fall Conference in October 2005 at Wright State; and as a member of the Board of Examiners (2003–2006) and the Unit Accreditation Board (2006–2013) for the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Harris also served as a reviewer for the American Educational Research Journal, receiving recognition in 2007 as an Outstanding Reviewer for the Section on Social and Institutional Analysis. Most recently, she received a 2011 Woman of Leadership Hall of Fame Award from the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio; was awarded the RWE 2011 Willystine Goodsell Award in recognition of her service on behalf of women, girls, and education through scholarship, activism, and community-building; and was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Cities of Kettering and Oakwood Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration Breakfast