Alfred W. Tatum

Dr. Alfred W. Tatum is the provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Prior to his move to Colorado, he served as the dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2013–2020. He also served as a department chair, reading-clinic director, Ph.D. program coordinator, director of graduate studies, and professor. He joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007 after teaching at Northern Illinois University, the University of Maryland, and Buffalo State College.

His research and advocacy are aimed at advancing the literacy development of African American boys, both struggling and non-struggling readers and writers in the United States. He focuses on the roles of texts and instruction to nurture social and scientific consciousness across the disciplines as a path toward intellectual and personal development. He is a former middle school teacher and reading specialist. Dr. Tatum links the ability to read with the ability to protect and advance communities.

Professor Tatum holds a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University and a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is the author of Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap (Stenhouse Publishers, 2005); Reading for Their Life: (Re)building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males (Heinemann, 2009); Fearless Voices: Engaging a New Generation of African American Male Writers (Scholastic Teaching Resources, 2013); and Teaching Black Boys in the Elementary Grades: Advancing Disciplinary Reading and Writing to Secure Their Futures (Teachers College Press, 2021).