Berea College appointed Nicholas D. Hartlep as the chair of the department of education studies and named him as the Robert Billings Chair in Education.
Hartlep began his career as a first grade teacher in Rochester, Minnesota, before receiving a doctoral degree in urban education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM). He also has a master’s degree in K–12 education and bachelor’s degree in elementary education, both conferred from Winona State University (WSU).
Hartlep comes to Berea College from the School of Urban Education at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he served as graduate program coordinator and chair of the department of early childhood/elementary education.
“I am very excited to be joining my amazing colleagues in education studies at Berea College,” Dr. Hartlep said. “I believe in Berea College’s eight Great Commitments. I look forward to becoming a ‘mountaineer.’”
Hartlep has published 19 books, the most recent being “Asian/American Scholars of Education: 21st Century Pedagogies, Perspectives, and Experiences,” with coeditors Amardeep K. Kahlon and Daisy Ball (2018) and “The Neoliberal Agenda and the Student Debt Crisis in U.S. Higher Education,” with Lucille L. T. Eckrich and Brandon O. Hensley (2017). In 2015, Hartlep received the University Research Initiative award from Illinois State University and a distinguished young alumni award from WSU. In 2016, UWM presented him with a Graduate of the Last Decade award for his prolific writing. In 2017, Metropolitan State University presented Hartlep with both the 2017 Community Engaged Scholarship award and the President’s Circle of Engagement award. In 2018, the Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) granted Hartlep the John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement.