Dr. Harper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), is a leading national expert on Black male students in higher education. He has published six books and more than 50 journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications, mostly pertaining to Black undergraduate men. He has also presented more than 100 research papers and workshops at national education conferences since 2002. Dr. Harper’s scholarly contributions include three chapters in the acclaimed edited volume, African American Men in College (Jossey-Bass, 2006). Harvard University Press is publishing his newest single-authored book, Exceeding Expectations: Black Male Achievers and Insights into College Success.
Dr. Harper received the 2008 Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Early Career Award. Also, the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics presented him its 2008 Outstanding Contribution to Research Award. In September 2007, Dr. Harper was featured on the cover of Diverse Issues in Higher Education for his National Black Male College Achievement Study, the largest-ever research study on Black male undergraduates. He is presently engaged in data analysis for a second landmark research project: The National Study of Black Male Student Equity in Public Postsecondary Education, a statistical examination of Black male college opportunity and outcomes across all 596 public colleges and universities in the United States. Dr. Harper has received more than $900,000 in grants from the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and other sources to fund his research on Black men.
This professor’s impact on Black male college achievement extends beyond publishing, securing research grants, and winning awards. Dr. Harper advises Black Men United, an undergraduate student organization at Penn and also devotes a generous portion of his time to mentoring Black male students and other young professionals working at higher education institutions across the country. He is Director of the Black Male Grad Prep Academy, an initiative focused on preparing college juniors for admission to Ph.D. programs in education immediately upon completion of their undergraduate studies. Through this program, Black males from colleges and universities across the country travel to Penn, participate in a three-month GRE prep course, and network with current Black male Ph.D. students who then guide them through the process of applying to education doctoral programs. Dr. Harper serves on the Board of Directors for the Kappa Alpha Psi Achievement Academy, another initiative aimed at increasing Black male enrollments in graduate school.
An additional noteworthy feature of Professor Harper’s work is its policy relevance. The policy report he wrote for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 2006 received extensive coverage in The Chronicle of Higher Education and other media outlets, and has since become one of the most widely cited publications on Black male students in higher education. Over the past year, he has served as a panelist for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference and three other policy briefings on Capitol Hill. Moreover, Shaun serves on the advisory board for the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, a Washington-based organization that conducts and disseminates research and policy analyses. Results from his National Study of Black Male Student Equity in Public Postsecondary Education will be released in the form of a policy report in 2010.
Few scholars have had as great an impact on the study of Black male students in American higher education than Dr. Harper. More impressive are the meaningful ways in which his research informs policy, practice, and the actual lives of the people he writes about. Professor Harper’s work can be downloaded from his website: www.works.bepress.com/sharper
Dr. Harper and a student.
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