William F. Tate IV

William F. Tate IV is the president of Louisiana State University. Previously, he was provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at the University of South Carolina and held the USC Education Foundation Distinguished Professorship with appointments in Sociology and Family and Preventive Medicine (secondary appointment). Prior to joining the University of South Carolina faculty, he served as dean and vice provost for graduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, where he held the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professorship in Arts & Sciences. Before serving at Washington University in St. Louis, he held the William and Betty Adams Chair at TCU and served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Tate’s research program has focused on the social determinants of mathematics performance. He served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he was a senior researcher at the NSF-funded National Institute for Science Education working in the area of systemic reform and policy studies. He later served as project director of the Urban Systemic Program, an NSF-funded project in the Dallas Independent School District, where he was charged with district-wide responsibility in mathematics, science, and engineering education for over 161,000 students and 10,500 teachers. He served as a member of Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the National Research Council. His co-edited book project titled, Research and Practice Pathways in Mathematics Education: Disrupting Tradition captures his interest in connecting researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to improve opportunity to learn in mathematics education.

Tate has a particular interest in STEM attainment. Ongoing research projects include understanding the distal and social factors that predict STEM doctoral degree attainment defined broadly to include highly quantitative social sciences disciplines (e.g., economics). His co-edited book titled, Beyond Stock Stories and Folktales: African Americans’ Paths to STEM Fields captures the direction of this research program.

For over a decade, his research has focused on the development of epidemiological and geospatial models to explain the social determinants of educational attainment as well as health and developmental outcomes. He served as a member of For the Sake of All research team, a multi-disciplinary group that is studying the health, development, and well-being of African Americans in the St. Louis region. His book project titled, Research on Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic Responsibility reflects his interest in the geography of opportunity in metropolitan America.

Professor Tate is a past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Among his research fellowships, he has been an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow at the University of Maryland at College Park, a Ford Foundation Fellow at the University of Ghana, and the recipient of an Early Career Award (AERA). In 2010, he received a Presidential Citation from AERA for “his expansive vision of conceptual and methodological tools that can be recruited to address inequities in opportunities to learn.” In 2011, he was awarded fellow status in the Association. In 2015, he received the Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education Research-Lifetime Achievement Award (AERA-Division G). In 2017, Insight Into Diversity Magazine presented him with its Inspiring Leader in STEM Award.

Tate earned his Ph.D. in mathematics education with a cognate in human development at the University of Maryland, College Park. He completed the post-doctoral training program in the Department of Psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned a master’s degree in psychiatric epidemiology.