Rubin Patterson, Ph.D., is honored to serve as the 28th Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences (COAS). Since his appointment in 2019, he has led COAS in delivering a
world-class liberal arts education that is informed by the global African diasporic
experience. Under his stewardship, COAS has prioritized curricular innovation as well
as faculty research in vital new fields, including Data Science, AI, competition between
democratic and authoritarian governing systems, and environmental and climate
science and justice, while maintaining the necessity of humanistic perspectives in all the
work of the College. Dean Patterson’s tenure has seen the establishment of the
Department of Earth, Environment, and Equity and the enhancement of global
initiatives, including Study Abroad and international partnerships. His extensive
international experience also includes having served as a research associate at the
University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa, and as a visiting professor at the
University of Ghana.
As a scholar, Patterson’s collaborative research has been supported by the National
Science Foundation, the National Park Service, the National Security Agency, and by
philanthropic institutions. He has researched and published broadly in the fields of
Southern African development, international development, and environmental studies.
His most recent major scholarly project has been the forthcoming (2026) Sage
Encyclopedia of Environmental Justice where he served as Associate Editor. The
encyclopedia will include nearly 400 entries from many of the leading environmental and
climate justice and science scholars throughout the world that touch every facet of
environmental justice. Dean Patterson is also now pursuing research concerning the
political economy of fossil fuels and energy transitions in the United States and in South
Africa.
Before his appointment as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Patterson served
as Chair of Howard’s Department of Sociology and Criminology. Prior to Howard, he
was a tenured Professor at the University of Toledo where his administrative
appointments included Chair of Sociology and Anthropology, Director of Africana
Studies, Director of the Institute for the Study and Economic Engagement of Southern
Africa, and Professor of Sociology.
Dean Patterson earned a Ph.D. in Sociology at Howard University, a Master of Science
in Engineering Management from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of
Science in Interdisciplinary Physics and Electrical Engineering from Florida State
University. Before becoming an academic, he also had a brief career in manufacturing
engineering and management in the semiconductor and satellite communication industries.
Sociology
Howard University
1992
Engineering Management
George Washington University
Interdisciplinary Physics and Electrical Engineering
Florida State University
Read: The Washington Informer | Howard Launches Department of Earth, Environment and Equity
Read: WTOL | Celebrating Juneteenth: Toledo's Black experience
Black Toledo: A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Toledo, Ohio
The African American experience since the 19th century has included the resettlement of people from slavery to freedom, agriculture to industry, South to North, and rural to urban centers. This book is a documentary history of this process over more than 200 years in Toledo, Ohio. There are four sections: the origin of the Black community, 1787 to 1900; the formation of community life, 1900 to 1950; community development and struggle, 1950 to 2000; and survival during deindustrialization, 2000 to 2016. The volume includes articles from the Toledo Blade and local Black press, excerpts of doctoral and masters theses, and other specialist and popular writings from and about Toledo itself.
Greening Africana Studies: Linking Environmental Studies with Transforming Black Experiences
Insufficient attention has been given to the environment in Africana studies within the academy. In Greening Africana Studies, Rubin Patterson initiates an important conversation explaining why and how the gap between these two disciplines can and should be bridged. His comprehensive book calls for a green African transnationalism and focuses on the mission and major paradigms that identify the respective curriculum, research interests, and practices.
African Brain Circulation: Beyond the Drain-Gain Debate
In this book, discussions on African brain circulation and transnational society provide new insights and point to fertile research and policy agendas.
Transnational Capitalist Class: What’s Race Got To Do With It?—Everything!
This article examines the use of race by the transnational capitalist class (TCC) to get globalizing politicians in office to execute the powers of the state to help shift from national obligations to labor to global obligations to capital. When it comes to controlling the White House and the Senate, there is no region of the country more important to the TCC than the US South, and this region, more than others, turns on the fulcrum of race. This article also examines the political impact of the South moving beyond a narrow black-white binary to a broad diversely racialized society for the TCC.
A Great Dilemma Generates Another Great Transformation: Capitalism and Sustainable Environments
This article makes a couple of explorations in the relationship between the environment and capitalism. The first exploration culminates into yet another set of conclusions that reinforce a body of evidence showing that a livable environment and capitalism as we know it cannot coexist in the future. The second exploration investigates a different set of questions regarding the heretofore hostility between such progressives as radical labor and deep ecologists. The article concludes with movement towards a rapprochement between the two in terms of not only a blue-green alliance (i.e., blue collar labor and environmentalists), but also a red-green alliance.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, the institution where the US presidential contender Kamala Harris obtained her undergraduate law degree from, Dr Rubin Patterson, says he's proud of the feat achieved by one of their former students. Patterson says Harris has inspired students at the institution.
