VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology in the College of Humanities and Sciences, has been named the recipient of the Doris Entwisle Early Career Award of the American Sociological Association section on Sociology of Education.

The biennial award honors an early career scholar in the sociology of education who has demonstrated exceptional achievement that has advanced knowledge in the field. Cottom will receive the award at the ASA annual meeting in New York in August.

Cottom is a leading expert in the study of inequality, work, higher education and technology.

She is co-editor of two volumes on technological change, inequality and institutions: “Digital Sociologies” (2016, UK Bristol Policy Press) and “For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education” (2017, Palgrave MacMillan).

Her books, “Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy” (2017, The New Press) and the recent collection “Thick: And Other Essays” (2019, The New Press), have received widespread national and international acclaim.

Earlier this month, Cottom testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a hearing on “Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Strengthening Accountability to Protect Students and Taxpayers.”

Cottom is also co-hosting a new podcast, “Hear to Slay,” with Roxane Gay. The podcast, which will launch on Luminary in May, is described by the podcast platform as “the black feminist podcast of your dreams — compelling conversations curated in only the way black women can.”