Claudia Rankine will join the Yale faculty this fall to serve as an adjunct professor of English and African-American Studies.
Students and faculty are incredibly excited to have the Citizen author join the university. African American Studies Department Chair Jacqueline Goldsby told the Yale Daily News, “I’m positively over the moon that Claudia Rankine is joining Yale’s faculty. Rankine’s a tremendous talent. It’s thrilling to bring a poet working at the peak of her powers to teach here. Our problem will be a great one to have: how to manage these course enrollments.”
Rankine’s work has been praised by critics, with Citizen taking home the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and becoming the only book of poetry to be a New York Times bestseller in the nonfiction category.
Students are more than ready for the fall semester to begin and to take advantage of having such an esteemed poet on campus. Alicia Lovelace told the paper that Rankine’s work has stuck with her ever since she saw her speak in New York, adding, “Yale needs professors like Claudia Rankine, now more than ever.”
WANT MORE FROM ESSENCE? Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest in hair, beauty, style and celebrity news.