Elon Dancy

T. Elon Dancy II was appointed the third Helen S. Faison Endowed Chair and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Education in the University of Pittsburgh School of Education in July 2018. In this role, he operates as the Center’s chief research scientist, leading the Center’s scholarly agenda and synergizing collaborations around shared inquiry. Dr. Dancy holds affiliate faculty appointments in Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Dancy served a term as the Pitt School of Education’s associate dean for equity and justice, collaboratively establishing the School’s signature initiatives, study groups, and faculty pedagogy workshops. While associate dean, he led in building a Black educational studies focus in the Pitt School of Education, which diversified the faculty and expanded the School’s curriculum. Dr. Dancy’s tenure in the Center for Urban Education seeks to anchor the Center’s scholarly and service projects within Black and Indigenous knowledge traditions, political education, and collaborative, community-based literacies. The Center’s extensive programs and initiatives include a series of local and national convenings on the school-prison nexus, Black education histories, and education and freedom practice.