Michelle Knight-Manuel, Professor of Education, has been named the new executive editor of the Teachers College Record. The appointment was announced this week by Stephanie Rowley, the College’s Provost, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs. 

Knight-Manuel is the 13th scholar to serve as editor in the journal’s 119-year history. She succeeds Gary Natriello, who served as the Record’s editor from 1995 through June of this year.

The Record is a monthly peer-reviewed journal of research, analysis and commentary in the field of education. The nation’s oldest journal devoted to education and educational research, it has been published continuously by the College since 1900.

“The Teachers College Record is one of the crown jewels of our institution – an internationally recognized platform that places the College at the forefront of discussion in education and all the fields that bear upon it,” said Rowley. “Professor Knight-Manuel’s demonstrated record of innovative scholarship, experience in the world of education practitioners and sensitivity and appreciation for the perspectives of multiple constituencies make her the ideal person to build on the traditions of the Record and lead this flagship journal to ever greater prominence into the next decade.” 

Knight-Manuel is a former middle school ESL/French teacher and college advisor who worked in Oakland, California. She conducts her scholarship for – and collaborates with – researchers, policymakers, practitioners, students, families, and community members in order to address educational disparities. More specifically, her work focuses on college readiness and access, immigrant youth’s civic strengths, and culturally relevant teacher preparation and professional development. Knight-Manuel has published in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Review of Research in Education, and the Journal of Educational Policy. She also has written two books with Joanne Marciano, Classroom Cultures: Equitable Schooling for Racially Diverse Youth and College Ready: Preparing Black and Latino Youth for Higher Education through a Culturally Relevant Lens.

“I am thrilled by this wonderful opportunity to impact the field and steward the next phase of the Record, which has always been held in such high esteem for advancing new forms of knowledge in new and different ways,” Knight-Manuel said.  “I very much want to create a consultative process that engages both prominent and emerging scholars to think through the forward direction of this journal.”

While her thoughts are preliminary at this point, Knight-Manuel said that she is interested in making the Record, which has published digitally for more than a decade, “even more dialogic with our community, and inviting more conversation from different constituencies. The featured scholarly articles are very important and will continue, but how can we go also go beyond that solitary engagement between reader and text to bring fresh issues out through conversational means? How do we become more interactive with scholars, practitioners, community organizations and others locally, nationally and internationally?”

Knight-Manual would also like to see the Record address societal issues from multiple perspectives, including those that compel science to engage with other traditions.

“Take the decision to construct the Thirty Meter Telescope on the sacred ground of indigenous people on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea – how do we grapple with advancing science and including the perspectives and concerns of people who have been marginalized?”

Knight-Manuel has previously served as Associate Dean and Senior Advisor to TC’s Provost, and also as Director of Culturally Relevant College and Career Readiness for the New York City Department of Education’s Expanded Success Initiative. She is the recipient of several honors and awards, including the forthcoming 2020 AERA Research on Women in Education Willystine Goodsell Award; the American Educational Research Association’s Research Service Project Award; a Faculty Research Innovation Award at Teachers College; and a Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.