Ernest Morrell, who previously served as the TC Macy Professor of English Education and Director of the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study (formerly the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME)), died on February 4 at the age of 54. Morrell was the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education and a faculty member of the English and Africana Studies Departments at the University of Notre Dame, where he was also Director of the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education and served for five years as Associate Dean for the Humanities and Faculty Development in the College of Arts & Letters. 

Morrell was widely respected as a prodigious scholar, transformative educator and dynamic leader whose work reimagined the field of English education and literacy studies. His research and teaching centered on literacy, equity, culture, justice and civic involvement, helping educators better serve students from diverse and historically underserved communities. At the forefront of Morrell’s work was a commitment to making English relevant for students, and he believed fervently in the use of technology — and digital literacy — as an important means of reaching students. 

“Professor Morrell's legacy and impact at Teachers College and in the fields of English education, literacy studies and its advancement is profound,” said KerryAnn O’Meara, Provost and Dean of the College. “His impact will live on through his scholarship, students, colleagues and the numerous educators he mentored and inspired at Teachers College and beyond. Across Teachers College, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.”

During his tenure at TC from 2010-2017, Morrell collaborated closely with faculty and students across the community to advance research and scholarship. In assuming leadership of the Gordon Institute, Morrell succeeded the research institute's namesake and his tenure included the establishment of TC’s annual Edmund W. Gordon Distinguished Lecture. Morrell also transitioned the work of the Gordon Institute from the then TC Edmund W. Gordon Campus in Harlem’s Hotel Theresa back to TC’s main campus.

“I remember quite vividly when Ernest was appointed the new Director of IUME. It was an exciting moment to see a critical and cultural studies scholar inject renewed intellectual energy, a new generation of scholarship, and an ambitious agenda for the Institute,” said Ezekiel Dixon-Román, current Director of the Gordon Institute, and Professor of Critical Race, Media, and Educational Studies at Teachers College. “From the establishment of the Gordon Distinguished Lecture to his interest in making IUME (physically) central to the TC community, and his passion for youth and community engaged scholarship, Morrell has left an enduring imprint and legacy for TC and the Gordon Institute to carry forward a living tradition of scholarship that centers justice and continually reimagines education as a site of transformation, collective liberation and possibility.” 

Through his leadership of IUME, he brought a renewed energy and focus on building intellectual community, cultivating students, and working with youth as well as deep engagement with communities. Working in close collaboration with numerous colleagues, he helped establish multiple initiatives throughout the College. Among these:

• Faculty Fellows program at IUME. Each year, IUME invited scholars to join the Institute as a "Faculty Fellow" who acted as a liaison and partnering academic in the institute’s journey towards social justice.
• Cyphers for Justice, co-founded by Associate Professor of English Education Limarys Caraballo (Ed.D. ’12) and Jamila Lyiscott (Ph.D. ’15) and today directed by Caraballo, a youth and educator development program that is grounded in youth participatory action research methods to apprentice NYC high school youth and educators as critical researchers.
• In collaboration with his wife Jodene Morrell through her work at IUME, he co-created the Literacy Teachers Initiative (LTI) Project, which partnered with K–8 teachers in Harlem and Brooklyn to deepen culturally relevant literacy pedagogy through sustained collaboration with Teachers College faculty and graduate students.
• In collaboration with Kassie Freeman (President and CEO, African Diaspora Consortium (ADC)), Michael Nettles (Professor & Endowed Chair of Predictive Analytics and Psychometrics, Morgan State University), Henry Levin (William Heard Kilpatrick Professor Emeritus of Economics and Education) and the College Board, he developed African Diaspora content for the College Board’s first Advanced Placement Seminar to include Africana or Black Studies material.  
• Partnered with The Racial Literacy Roundtable Series, led by Professor of English Education Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, an effort to create spaces for teachers, students, and members of the TC community to engage in conversation about race, identity, and community.

Morrell  also embraced Harlem’s rich history through scholarship during his time at the College. He and Ansley Erickson, Associate Professor of History and Education Policy, and Director of TC’s Center on History & Education, established the Harlem Education History Project to collaborate with students and community members on the history of education in Harlem and later coedited Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community (2019). 

Morrell characterized this work as “unsilencing the archive” to “connect young people to histories of action for change in their communities,” he explained in a book talk with Erickson in 2020. The seeds of this work began during Morrell’s early years teaching high school in Oakland, California, where he wanted to help students engage more deeply with their community by better understanding its history. 

The author of more than 100 publications, Morrell wrote or edited nearly 20 books including: New Directions in Teaching English: Reimagining Teaching, Teacher Education and Research (2015); Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides (2021); Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools (2013), which was awarded Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine; and his latest coauthored book, Critical English Education: Enduring Voices, New Perspectives, published last month.

Morrell was an elected member of the National Academy of Education, an elected fellow of the American Educational Research Association and, in 2024, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Morrell also served in leadership roles for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), including as president in 2013-2014 and as director of the NCTE James R. Squire Office on Policy Research in English Language Arts since 2020. 

His many honors included the NCTE Distinguished Service Award, and, last year, the James R. Squire Award, a prestigious honor from the National Council of Teachers of English. Morrell received his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of California, Berkeley.

He is survived by his wife, Jodene, and their three sons, Skip, Antonio and Tripp.