This fall, the SLU Urban Studies department welcomes two new faculty members. Fanon John Howell joins as a Substitute Assistant Professor and Interim Program Director for Undergraduate Studies. As a sociologist, educator and institutional leader, he focuses on urban education, educational technology and institutional change.
“My work has consistently brought me to questions about how institutions respond to changing social conditions: how they reproduce or challenge structures of marginalization, how they reflect the values and tensions of their historical moment, and how they can become vehicles for greater equity and social justice,” said Dr. Howell. “I see SLU as an institution that is itself engaged in this work—an institution with a distinctive history and mission and with the opportunity to continually deepen its role as a catalyst for social and civic transformation.
Dr. Howell comes to SLU after two decades in K-12 education, educational technology, and philanthropy, directing a multi-state initiative serving 40,000-plus students across more than 200 Title I schools. Before that, he led curriculum assessment and professional development at the NYC Department of Education.
His scholarship examines how educational institutions respond to accountability, restructuring and technological change, with particular attention to how institutional practices shape educational opportunity and equity. He received his B.A. from Morehouse College, an M.A. from NYU, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from The New School for Social Research where his doctoral research explored governance and assessment of culture in the NYC Department of Education. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and held teaching positions at Sarah Lawrence College, Teachers College, The New School, Pratt Institute, and CUNY Hostos Community College.
Danniel Katch, a longtime educator of writing and community journalism, also joins as a substitute lecturer. His work and scholarship explore areas in social movement rhetorics, critical genre awareness, worker education, and grammar and standard language ideology. He’s a frequent contributor to Truthout, the Indypendent and Jacobin, and was a member of the Working Class Heroes media collective. He’s also the author of “Socialism… Seriously: A Brief Guide to Surviving the 21st Century” and Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People.
“As the second of three generations of CUNY students, and as someone who has spent decades working in popular education with an emphasis on developing working-class writers and thinkers, I am thrilled to join the team at CUNY SLU — especially at a time when these voices are urgently needed,” he said.
Katch is no stranger to CUNY. As an adjunct lecturer at the City College of New York, he taught classes in composition and grammar, as well as a writing seminar about democracy. He has presented his work at the *College Composition and Communication Conference, the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar, Two-Year College English Association – Northeast conference, and the New York City Consortium for Adult Basic Education. He received a BA in history from Brown University, an MA in Education from Hunter College, and an MA in Language and Literacy from the City College of New York.