Professor Mary Pattillo is the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University, but I know her as my Freshman Year Seminar Advisor and de facto “Auntie on Campus.” Her mentorship has been a constant throughout my undergraduate career at Northwestern, and I owe a large portion of my success to her tireless dedication to her students. Though I have stopped taking her classes, she continues to welcome me—with open arms—to her office hours on Tuesdays. As a senior, I wanted to pay an ode to her as an amazing mentor and instructor during Black History Month.
What are your roles at Northwestern?
I’m a professor of African American Studies and sociology on campus. I’ve been at Northwestern since 1998, so this is my 20th year. I work with [both] graduate students and undergraduates. My most recent significant role on campus is as one of the mentors for the Posse scholars, which is a group of 10 students. We meet every week for two years, and I have their back.
What have you gotten out of being a Posse advisor? And what do you hope your Posse group will get out of this experience with you?
I have learned so much as a Posse mentor! Before being a Posse mentor, I probably had two or three undergraduates that I was close to as a mentor. I wrote a million of letters of recommendation for them, and I’m still in touch with them today. But, I wasn’t involved in them picking all of their classes, and I didn’t know what it was like to maneuver through Northwestern every day [as a student].
As for your second question, one thing that I frequently said to my Posse students is that they need to embrace Northwestern as abundant in resources. I didn’t want them to accept “no” for an answer easily. I wanted them to recognize are all kinds of support and possibilities at Northwestern that they just need to ask about and take advantage of.
Among the classes that you teach, which are your favorite and why?
I love teaching, so I’m not sure I have a favorite. Every time I’m teaching, I’m thinking, “Oh, I love this class!” I love to reread books that I’ve read already. I love to impart that information because I think it’s so interesting. I love sociology and African American Studies. I teach a class called Black Chicago, which I wanted to teach next year. I can’t even teach all of the things I want to teach! But, when I’ve taught Black Chicago in the past, I usually take the students on a field trip. For example, one year I took the students to a stepping lesson on the south side. I’m not talking about the kind of stepping that Black fraternities and sororities do, which is unique to Black culture. The stepping I’m talking about is unique to Chicago. It’s a couple’s dance that is like salsa or the tango; those are other Latin couple’s dances, and stepping is Chicago’s Black couple’s dance. So, we went to a park on the south side to take a stepping class. I love to introduce the students to Black Chicago in a way that’s way more positive than the media does.
It seems like you didn’t embark on this career path with a desire to be an expert. It’s the love you have for social sciences. So what first sparked your passion in Sociology and African American Studies?
You’re right; I definitely didn’t start the path wanting to be an expert. I wasn’t quite sure what getting a PhD meant, but I’ve always been super curious about the things I still study. What sparked my passion was being part of a desegregation-busing program in Milwaukee. I grew up in an all Black neighborhood, and I was bused to an all-White suburb for high school, and the differences were stark. It was an affluent White suburb, and I grew up in a lower-middle class/working-class Black neighborhood. But, I had to traverse all the different kinds of neighborhoods in Milwaukee to get to school. Those stark differences were always of interest to me. I wanted to know what created them, what perpetuated them, what sustained them, and how did it impact those of us who stayed on opposite sides of the proverbial railroad tracks. That’s what I’ve come to study, basically. My curiosity definitely led me down this path, and then I realized getting a PhD means you become the expert on this. You have to write about it authoritatively, so now I guess I am “the expert,” especially on the Black middle class, which is what I ended up studying. I also studied other things: I’m an expert on public housing in Chicago and on gentrification in Chicago.
At Northwestern, you’re the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies. What does it mean to you to hold that title and be the chair of the Departments of Sociology and African American Studies?
The Harold Washington chair reflects my focus on Chicago, with Harold Washington being Chicago’s first African-American mayor. To me, having that chair illustrates my hope to be the kind of sociologist that gets involved in present-day issues. There’s a big debate among scholars in all disciples as to if scholarship should be engaged in public debate and public life. Some people think that in pure scholarship, we have to remove ourselves from those debates and not take strong positions. Once you take a strong position, you now have a predisposition for your next research project, and you will basically find what you look for because you already have a position [on the subject]. So many people think we should keep our distance from advocacy, or policy, or position taking. But obviously, Harold Washington, as an elected official and someone who was making policy and taking positions all the time, illustrates my commitment to being involved in Chicago’s neighborhoods, and in particular, Chicago’s Black neighborhoods. He was beloved in those neighborhoods, and that’s really the base that helped him get elected.
What does Black History Month mean to you? Is there anything you do differently during this time of year?
That’s a fascinating question. Black History Month has totally changed for me now that I’m an African American Studies professor. It’s Black History Year for us! It’s Black History Life for me, so I don’t get up at all for February. February could be January or June; I’m living Black history and reading Black history 24/7.
~ Post written by Malcolm Bowman, WCAS ’18