Archon Michael Carter, Sr.
Michael A. Carter Sr. currently serves as Managing Partner of Pinnacle Construction Partners, LLC a commercial preconstruction, planning and construction management service company for the public and private sector and President and CEO of MAC LLC, a commercial and residential development company.
Michael graduated from high school in Detroit, Michigan and has a B.A. (1972) cum laude and a M.B.A. (1978) from the University of Detroit Mercy. He and wife Pamela reside in Franklin, Tennessee. Michael and Pamela are proud parents of a son Michael Jr. and daughter Marcya. Both children are graduates of the University of Michigan.
Michael is active in several civic and community organizations. He is co-founder of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a charter school in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He currently serves as President of Operation Graduation, Chairman of Sigma Pi Phi Chi Boule Foundation, Tennessee Public Charter School Commission and The University of Detroit Mercy Board of Trustees. He is former board chair of the Nashville Public Education Foundation and United Way of Metropolitan Nashville. Michael has also served as a board member on the Middle Tennessee Council Boy Scouts of America, 100 Black Men of Middle Tennessee, Nashville State Community College Foundation, Nashville Chamber of Commerce and Brentwood Chamber of Commerce.
Michael is the recipient of many awards including the University of Detroit Mercy’s Spirit Award honoring outstanding alumni, United Way of Metropolitan Nashville Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Jr. Excellence in Volunteer Leadership Award, Nashville Chamber Volunteer of the Year, 100 Black Men Distinguished Member, Charter School Leadership Award, and the R.H. Boyd Minority Business of the Year.
Michael is a Leadership Nashville and Leadership Brentwood alum and is a competitive master swimmer and clay shooting enthusiast.
H. Richard Milner, IV
H. Richard Milner, IV is a Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. In April 2022, Professor Milner received the prestigious Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Professor Award, one of Vanderbilt University’s highest honors. He has secondary appointments in Peabody’s Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations and the Department of Sociology in Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science. Professor Milner is a researcher, scholar, and leader of urban education and teacher education. Professor Milner is President of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Centering equity, justice, and diversity, he has spent hundreds of hours observing teachers’ practices and interviewing educators and students in urban schools about micro-level policies that shape students’ opportunities to learn. He examines the social context of classrooms and schools and the ways in which teacher talk, particularly about race, influences student learning, identity, and development. His research in urban schools has influenced designs and practices of teacher education courses and programs. To improve relational, curricular, assessment, and instructional practices, school districts across the United States and beyond draw on his recommendations to support students of color, those who live below the poverty line, and those whose first language is not English (see, for instance, “These Kids are out of Control:” Why We Must Reimagine Classroom Management, Corwin Press, 2018).
Prior to rejoining the Vanderbilt faculty in 2018, Professor Milner spent five years as Helen Faison Endowed Chair of Urban Education, professor of education, and by courtesy, professor of sociology, professor of social work, and professor of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh. While there, he directed the university’s Center for Urban Education. Professor Milner began his career at Vanderbilt where in 2008, he became the first Black faculty member at Peabody College to earn promotion and tenure from assistant to associate professor. He also was appointed Lois Autrey Betts Assistant (later Associate) Professor of Education. In addition to his service in the Department of Teaching and Learning, where he founded the graduate program in learning, diversity, and urban studies, he held a courtesy appointment in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations.
Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published seven books. In 2017, he became the founding series editor of the Harvard Education Press Series on Race and Education. In 2017, he was also appointed inaugural contributor of the equity column for the journal, Educational Leadership, one of the most widely read outlets for practitioners in the world. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of Urban Education. In the fall of 2015, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education assigned his book, Rac(e)ing to Class, to all incoming graduate students and invited alumni across the world to read the book. He was then invited to deliver a prestigious Askwith Lecture at Harvard, where he discussed research and findings from his book.
Professor Milner has been widely recognized for his contributions to education scholarship. In October 2018, he delivered the prestigious annual Brown Lecture in Education Research of the American Educational Research Association, the world’s largest educational research association. Attendance at the lecture reached a record high 900 in addition to online viewers. In 2016, he was named an AERA Fellow. AERA has also honored him with Outstanding Reviewer awards (2017 and 2015) for his work on the Editorial Board of Educational Researcher, and the Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) Award for Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education (2015). In 2006, he received AERA’s Early Career Award. In 2012, Professor Milner was honored with The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology Distinguished Alumnus Award. He was also awarded the John Dewey Society Outstanding Achievement Award (2016) for his scholarship bridging theory and practice in the spirit of John Dewey. Professor Milner has been ranked for seven years among the top 200 scholars nationally influencing public discussions of education in Education Week’s annual Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings.
The media frequently turn to Professor Milner as a resource. His work has been cited or featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Atlantic, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Huffington Post, National Public Radio (NPR), National Education Association Today, Educational Leadership, and Education Week.
Professor Milner taught high school English Language Arts in South Carolina and Developmental Reading at Columbus State Community College. Professor Milner is also much in demand by other educational institutions. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas-Austin (2010, 2011, and 2013) and at York University in Toronto, Canada (2010). In 2012, he served as a visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Education’s Scholars of Color Symposium Series at the University of Pennsylvania. During summer 2016, Professor Milner taught a course on Race and Poverty in the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington.
Most importantly, Professor Milner has been married for 17 years to Shelley Banks Milner, a former State Farm Agent. He is the proud father of twelve-year-old twin daughters, Anna Grace and Elise Faith, who attend the Ensworth School in Nashville, Tennessee.