First Betty Shabazz Chair Appointed at Medgar Evers College

President Edison O. Jackson announced that the inaugural holder of the Dr. Betty Shabazz Distinguished Chair in Social Justice at Medgar Evers College will be Dr. Andrèe-Nicola McLaughlin.

Those charged with filling the chair—which commemorates the widow of Malcolm X (Malik Shabazz) and long-time Medgar Evers Director of Public Relations—did not have to look far for a prominent occupant. Professor McLaughlin, a scholar of world studies, has been on the MEC faculty since 1974, and for two decades she has taught, lectured, written, and traveled worldwide as an advocate for human rights, indigenous rights, educational equity, and other social justice goals.

As founding coordinator of the 15-year-old International Cross-Cultural Black Women's Studies Institute, based at the College, McLaughlin has organized and convened eight world conferences on a variety of social justice issues. For many years MEC students have earned college credit for study abroad and student exchanges in collaboration with the Institute.

This spring McLaughlin is launching a series of "Shabazz Conversations" on social justice issues at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Among her first guests will be Grammy-winning writer and CCNY alum Walter Mosley, syndicated columnist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, and Cornell University scholar James Turner.

A native of White Plains, New York, McLaughlin earned her B.A. at Cornell, and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts.