Itta Bena native son and Mississippi Valley State University alumnus Emmitt Riley III has been awarded the 2018 Anna Julia Cooper Teacher of the Year Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
The award is given each year to an outstanding teacher, adviser and mentor. It is named after Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, an African-American woman enslaved in her youth, who secured her doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris and started a school for African-American children and a university for black adults in Washington, D.C., during the early part of the 20th century.
Riley, an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Depauw University in Indiana was nominated by his students and Depauw’s vice president of academic affairs, Dr. Anne Harris, for the award handed out at a recent meeting of the National Conference in Chicago.
“One of the things that has shaped my teaching career has certainly been my experience at Valley,” Riley told MVSU Communications in a prepared statement.
Riley graduated magna cum laude from MVSU in 2008 with a double major in English and political science. He went on to earn a master’s degree in political science from Jackson State University and a Ph.D in 2014 from the University of Mississippi with a specialization in American politics and international relations.
At Depauw, he has taught courses in Africana studies, American government, legislative politics, the American presidency, race politics and political inequality. He is affiliated with the Peace and Conflict Studies program at Depauw as well as the Department of Political Science.
Prior to joining the faculty at Depauw, where he started out as a visiting assistant professor, Riley taught at Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale and worked as an adjunct professor of political science at Valley.
In 2015, he was named one of Greenwood’s Top 30 Under 40 by the Commonwealth. He has remained involved in local affairs in Itta Bena and Greenwood and at Valley over the years.
His research focuses on the degree to which African-American political representation impacts the attitudes and political behavior of whites. He is currently writing a book exploring the subject of why black politicians have not used their political capital to transform the Mississippi Delta.
His mother, Johnnie Riley, was elected to the Itta Bena board of aldermen in 2016. Emmitt Riley ran for a seat on the board of aldermen in 2012, but lost in a runoff election to current Itta Bena Mayor J.D. Brasel.
• Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
