Authors
James W. Fraser is Professor of History and Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. His teaching includes courses in the History of American Education, a survey course in U.S. History, and Inquiries into Teaching and Learning. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Dr. Fraser served as Senior Vice President for Programs at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey. At the Foundation he was responsible for coordinating the work of the different Fellowship programs, especially the Foundation’s new signature program, Fellowships for Teachers. The Teaching Fellowship Program which began with four
universities in Indiana now supports Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellows in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and individual university programs across the country. He has also served as NYU liaison to the New Design High School, a public high school in New York’s Lower East Side, and to Facing History and Ourselves. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the History of Education Quarterly.
Dr. Fraser was the founding dean of Northeastern University’s School of Education, serving from 1999 to 2004. He was a member and chair of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Education Deans Council, the Boston School Committee Nominating Committee, and other boards. He was a lecturer in the Program in Religion and Secondary Education at the Harvard University Divinity School from 1997 to 2004. He has taught at Lesley University, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Boston University and Public School 76 Manhattan. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and was pastor of Grace Church in East Boston, Massachusetts from 1986 to 2006.
Dr. Fraser’s newest book, TEACH was published in 2010, and a second edition of TheSchool in the United States: A Documentary History was published in 2009. His other recent books include Preparing America’s Teachers: A History (2007), A History of Hope: When Americans Have Dared to Dream of a Better Future (2002), Between Church and State:Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America (1999), and Reading, Writing, and Justice: School Reform as if Democracy Matters (1997). He has also published in the Journal of Teacher Education, Education Next, Education Week, as well as reviews in the Journal of American History and the History of Education Quarterly.