David A. Jolliffe Appointed Brown Chair in Literacy

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Dean Donald Bobbitt of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences has appointed David Jolliffe to the Brown Chair in English Literacy. Jolliffe will direct programs to increase literacy in Arkansas, such as community-based tutoring, professional development workshops for teachers, summer workshops and reading programs.

“The Brown Foundation has made it possible for us to recruit a scholar with remarkable credentials. Professor Jolliffe is the author or co-author of 10 books on writing, rhetoric, and writing across the curriculum. In his role as chief reader for the Advanced Placement English examination in language and composition and as a consultant to the Gates Foundation High School Redesign Initiative, he is highly aware of the challenges teachers across the country are facing today. I have every confidence he will make a lasting impact on improving literacy in Arkansas,” said Donald Bobbitt, dean of Fulbright College.  

Jolliffe, whose salary will be $125,000 a year, has been appointed a full professor with tenure in the college’s English department.

“As the Brown Chair in English Literacy, I look forward to working with University of Arkansas students, teachers throughout the state, community agencies, and not-for-profit organizations,” said Jolliffe.

Through encouraging scholarship and outreach efforts, he said he plans to address four central questions: How can adults in Arkansas realize the full potential that active, critical reading and clear, effective writing can play in their lives? How can business, industry and education in Arkansas cooperate so that workers in the state can meet the literacy demands of an information economy? How can elementary and high schools in the state prepare more students for the kinds of reading and writing they will need to do to succeed in college?  How can families and parents cooperate with schools so that young children effectively develop the reading and writing abilities that will help them prosper in school?

According to the Arkansas Literacy Councils, more than 20 percent of Arkansas adults read at or below a fifth-grade level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage. Of the nearly 2 million Arkansans age 18 and over, 491,000, or almost 25 percent, do not have a high school diploma. Forty-three percent of people with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty, 17 percent receive food stamps, and 70 percent have no job or a part time job.

Jolliffe earned his Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Texas at Austin. The former coordinator of the writing-in-the-disciplines initiative and English professor at DePaul University in Chicago, he served as a distinguished visiting professor at The American University in Cairo in 1997. He is the co-author of “Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing,” as well as nine other books, including “Inquiry and Genre: Writing to Learn in College.” He is also the author of 25 articles and book chapters and a frequent presenter at national conferences on language and communication.

The Brown Foundation Inc. of Houston gave the University of Arkansas $1.5 million in March 2003 to establish the Brown Chair. Since its inception, the Brown Foundation has awarded more than $800 million in grants, mainly to institutions in Houston.