Eddie R. Cole, Ph.D., is Professor of Education and History at UCLA and a 2023-24 Joy Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

A historian of higher education, Professor Cole’s research explores on race and social movements on college campuses; power and systems of power; and the outsized influence of colleges and universities on American society.

His commentary on education, race, and socio-political contexts has appeared in TIME, The Guardian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education; and he has appeared as expert commentator for CNN, BBC World News, MSNBC, and C-Span Book TV

Aside from his public scholarship, Professor Cole’s research has also been mentioned in The New York Times and Fortune Magazine coverage on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); He has also commented for The Atlantic regarding political attacks on American higher education; the Associated Press and Forbes Magazine on the hiring of Black college presidents; and Vox News on the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling on race in college admissions.

Professor Cole’s first book, The Campus Color Line , is a history of how academic leaders shaped racial policies and practices during the mid-twentieth century. The book received five book prizes:

• 2022: Winner of the Outstanding Publication Award, American Educational Research Association, Division J.
• 2021: Winner of the Outstanding Book Award, History of Education Society
• 2021: Winner of the Frederic W. Ness Book Award, Association of American Colleges & Universities
• 2021: Winner of the Outstanding Book Award, Association for the Study of Higher Education
• 2021: Winner of the Critics’ Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association

His second book, With Faith in God and Heart and Mind: A History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity (University of North Carolina Press, 2025), is a co-authored comprehensive and authoritative history of the fraternity through the lens of Black organizing across multiple eras of the Black freedom struggle.

His third book, which is currently in progress, will be a Black intellectual history of American higher education and published by Princeton University Press.

In addition to the previously mentioned honors, a select list of his scholarly awards includes:

• 2023: Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University
• 2018: Early Career Award, Association for the Study of Higher Education
• 2018: Dean’s Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• 2017: Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
• 2017: Robert L. Platzman Memorial Fellowship, University of Chicago
• 2015: National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Fellow

Most recently, he was named in Education Week – for the fifth consecutive year – among the nation’s scholars who did the most to shape educational practice and policy the previous year.

TOPICS: Education, Politics, Race