Philip Wexler has been named to the newly created Michael Warner Scandling Chair in the University of Rochester's Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
The chair, created as part of William F. Scandling's $5.7 million gift last year to the University of Rochester's education school, honors Scandling's son, Michael. That gift also led to the renaming of the school last year in honor of Mr. Scandling's wife, the late Margaret Warner Scandling.
Wexler became the education school's fifth dean in 1989, and he continues serving in that post. He had served previously as associate and senior associate dean.
A faculty member since 1979, Wexler, a sociologist, addresses in his research and books fundamental questions about what education is and what its role in society should be. He has written several books, including The Sociology of Education: Beyond Equality (1976), Social Analysis of Education: After the New Sociology (1987), Critical Social Psychology (1983), and Becoming Somebody: Toward a Social Psychology of School (1992). He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and has been an advisor to the U.S. Department of Education.
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