CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has been appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor for his work on African-American studies, Harvard announced Monday. Gates is the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, and served for 15 years as chair of what is now the Department of African and African American Research. Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 after teaching at Yale, Cornell and Duke. In announcing his appointment, interim President Derek C. Bok said Gates had taken a field that was “floundering” at Harvard a few years ago and transformed it into a national leader. The university professorships, established by the Harvard president and fellows in 1935, are chairs intended for “individuals of distinction … working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties.” The Fletcher chair is named after Alphonse Fletcher Jr., 1987 Harvard graduate who is chairman and chief executive of Fletcher Asset Management Inc. With the appointment of Gates, there are now 21 members of the Harvard faculty serving as university professors.
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