In 2007, The New York Times published an article entitled “Elite Colleges Open New Door to Low-Income Youths,” which featured a then graduating Amherst College senior named Anthony Abraham Jack. Sharing his story with the Times, Tony narrated his experiences as a low-income student from Miami, who was raised by a single mother earning less than $30,000 a year, and the opportunities extended to him at Amherst by their generous financial aid policies.
Fast-forward nine years later, and Tony is graduating yet again--this time, with a PhD in Sociology from Harvard University, where he was also an Associate Doctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Thankfully, this most recent graduation does not mean that his time at Harvard is done. Tony was recently elected a Junior Fellow at the prestigious Harvard Society of Fellows. He has also accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he will also serve as well as the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Tony’s research focuses on the experiences of low-income undergraduates and the factors that help or hinder their success and has already begun shaping national conversations around access to higher education. His research has been highlighted in The New York Times (feature and op-ed), The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and a host of other news outlets. He is a 2015 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan named him a 2016 Emerging Diversity Scholar. In addition to these academic contributions, he has been a loving resident tutor at Mather House for the past 7 years, known amongst his students for his bellowing laugh and warm presence.
Below is HAEd’s special interview with Tony Jack.
