Tressie McMillan Cottom

Tressie McMillan Cottom
Born (1976-10-09) October 9, 1976 (age 48)
Harlem, New York City, U.S.
Academic background
EducationNorth Carolina Central University (BA)
Emory University (MA, PhD)
ThesisBecoming Real Colleges in the Financialized Era of U.S. Higher Education: The Expansion and Legitimation of For-Profit Colleges (2015)
Academic work
DisciplineSociology
Institutions
Main interestsAmerican higher education, race, inequality, work, technology
Notable works

Tressie McMillan Cottom (born October 9, 1976)[1][2] is an American writer, sociologist, and professor. She is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and an affiliate of the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at UNC-Chapel Hill.[3] She is also an opinion columnist at The New York Times.[4]

She was formerly an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. McMillan Cottom is the author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy and Thick: And Other Essays, a co-editor of For-Profit Universities and Digital Sociologies, an essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and co-host of the podcast Hear to Slay with author Roxane Gay. She is frequently quoted in print and television media as an academic expert on inequality and American higher education. In 2020, McMillan Cottom was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of her work "at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology."[5]

  1. ^ McMillan Cottom, Tressie [@tressiemcphd] (October 9, 2019). "Time, it just keeps on passing. Another trip around the sun". Retrieved January 18, 2024 – via Instagram.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYT2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Author, professor, and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom joining SILS and CITAP | sils.unc.edu". sils.unc.edu. April 16, 2020. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  4. ^ Kingsbury, Kathleen; Patrick Healy; Charlotte Greensit (March 9, 2022). "Tressie McMillan Cottom Joins The Times as an Opinion Columnist". The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on March 29, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  5. ^ "Tressie McMillan Cottom - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Archived from the original on October 8, 2020. Retrieved October 6, 2020.