Patricia Albjerg Graham

Patricia Albjerg Graham began teaching English and History at Deep Creek High School in Virginia's Dismal Swamp in 1955.  Subsequently she taught at Maury High School in Norfolk, VA and then became chair of the History Department at St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's School in New York City.  Completing her PhD in history of education at Columbia University in 1964, she taught briefly at Indiana University and then Barnard College and Columbia University until 1974 when she moved to Harvard University as professor of the history of education and Dean of the Radcliffe Institute.  In 1977 President Jimmy Carter named her Director of the National Institute of Education where she served for two years before returning to Harvard where she became the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Education and served as Dean of the School of Education from 1982-91.  She then divided her time between her professorship and presidency of the Spencer Foundation in Chicago.  She retired from Harvard in 2001.  She is the author of several books, most recently Schooling America (Oxford, 2005) and numerous articles, most dealing with the history of American education.  She has received Guggenheim, Radcliffe Institute and Woodrow Wilson Center fellowships.  She has served on three corporate boards and several non-profit boards, including chairing the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Board.