Christopher Span

Christopher M. Span received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2001. He is a Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership (EPOL), and Chief of Staff and Associate Chancellor for Administration and PreK-12 Initiatives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the past decade, he served as an Associate Dean in the College of Education and the Faculty Athletics Representative for Illinois and the Big Ten. He is an historian of education who specializes in the educational history of African Americans in the 19th century.  He is the author of From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875, co-editor of Using Past as Prologue: Contemporary Perspectives on African American Educational History, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on the educational history of African Americans.  He is the past Vice President of Division F (History of American Education) for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the immediate past President of the History of Education Society.