James Pierpont Comer (born September 25, 1934) is currently the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the
Yale Child Study Center
The Yale Child Study Center is a department at the Yale University School of Medicine. The center conducts research and provides clinical services and medical training related to children and families. Topics of investigation include autism and r ...
and has been since 1976.
He is also an
associate dean
Dean is a title employed in academic administrations such as colleges or universities for a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, over a specific area of concern, or both. In the United States and Canada, deans are usua ...
at the
Yale School of Medicine
The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...
.
As one of the world's leading child psychiatrists, he is best known for his efforts to improve the scholastic performance of children from lower-income and minority backgrounds which led to the founding of the Comer School Development Program in 1968.
His program has been used in more than 600 schools in eighty-two school districts.
He is the author of ten books, including the autobiographical ''Maggie’s American Dream: The Life and Times of a Black Family'', 1988; ''Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World'', 2004; and his most recent book, ''What I Learned in School: Reflections on Race, Child Development, and School Reform'', 2009.
He has also written more than 150 articles for
Parents (magazine)
''Parents'' was an American monthly magazine founded in 1926 that featured scientific information on child development geared to help parents in raising their children. Subscribers were notified of the magazine’s dissolution via a postcard mail ...
and more than 300 articles on children's health and development and race relations.
Dr. Comer has also served as a consultant to the Children's Television Workshop (
Sesame Workshop
Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization and Television station, television company that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's ...
) which produces
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...
and
The Electric Company (1971 TV series)
''The Electric Company'' is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. T ...
. He is a co-founder and past president of the Black Psychiatrists of America and has served on the board of several universities, foundations, and corporations.
He has also lectured and consulted widely not only across the United States at different universities, medical schools, and scientific associations, but also around the world in places such as London, Paris, Tokyo, Dakar, Senegal and Sydney, Australia.
For his work and scholarship, Dr. Comer has been awarded 47 honorary degrees and has been recognized by numerous organizations.
Biography
Early life and education
Comer was born into a working-class family in
East Chicago, Indiana
East Chicago is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 26,370 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Centered around heavy industry, the city is home to the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, an artificial freshwa ...
.
He is the second oldest of five children: Louise, Norman, Charles, and Thelma.
His father Hugh worked in a steel mill factory while his mother Maggie was a stay-at-home mom. Although his parents had little education themselves, they strongly supported their children's education.
Student government was where Comer shined. In junior high he was elected one of the three councilmen to represent his four-fifths white class in seventh grade. As a freshman in high school he made the chorus. The choral club was fully integrated by the time he was senior and he was elected president of the organization.
He was also elected to student council all six years.
He was student council president his sophomore year and student manager his senior year.
Comer finished high school in the top three percent of a three-hundred-plus class.
Comer started college in 1952 at
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
. He was a pledge of one of the only three black fraternities on campus,
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate List of African-American fraternities, historically African American Fraternities and sororities, fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the ...
.
During his sophomore year he became vice-president of the fraternity and became president his following junior year. During second semester of his junior year he interviewed before the medical school admissions board but was not admitted. After being interviewed for the second time his senior year, he was then admitted to the
Indiana University School of Medicine
The Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) is a major, multi-campus medical school located throughout the US state, U.S. state of Indiana and is both the Medical school, undergraduate and Graduate medical education, graduate medical school o ...
. He graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts, attending both
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...
and
Northwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...
.
"University Honors & Awards: James P. Comer"
''Indiana University website''. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
Three years later in 1959, he married Shirley Arnold. They had two children together. Instead of attending the Indiana University School of Medicine, he decided to go to the predominantly black Howard University School of Medicine where he received his M.D. in 1960. Because of the many social conditions he witnessed throughout time, instead of practicing general medicine, he went on to the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
to get a degree in public health where he earned his M.P.H in 1964. After completing his M.P.H, Comer completed his training at the Yale School of Medicine, the Yale Child Study Center and the Hillcrest Children's Center in Washington, D.C.
Career
In 1968, Dr. Al Solnit, the director of the Yale Child Study Center at time, asked Dr. Comer to return to New Haven to run the New Haven Intervention Project, a collaboration between the Center and the New Haven Public Schools. Dr. Comer and his colleagues worked in the two lowest-performing elementary schools in New Haven.
By combining developmental and learning science principles the team identified the most critical elements involved in staff, student, parent, school, and community functioning in school, observed their interactivity, and then codified and systematized their operation and expression in a way that led to synchronous and positively synergistic school activity. The two schools eventually rivaled the highest-income schools, had the best attendance record, and no serious behavior problems.
The Comer School Development Program (SDP) is a research-based, comprehensive K-12 education reform program grounded in the principles of child, adolescent, and adult development. Over the past 40 plus years, the SDP model has been implemented in more than 1000 schools in 26 American states, the District of Columbia, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, England, and Ireland.
Though a principal-led but shared management framework, organizationally and/or primarily by the school staff, organizational, management, and communication issues are pulled together in a way that promotes collaboration, assessment, capacity building, and a focus on teaching in a way that leads to the integration of student development and academic learning. By minimizing confusion and conflict in the building system through this process, educators can make sound programmatic decisions based on student behavioral, developmental, and learning needs; and intentionally prepare students for school and mainstream life success. Our outcomes suggest that when students are developing well they will learn well.
While the School Development Program helps building level participants bring about change, it has been used as a framework for system-wide reform, providing mechanisms by which school boards and district central administration can coordinate and support the reform work at each school.
References
External links
James P. Comer's Faculty page at Yale School of Medicine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comer, James P.
1934 births
Living people
American child psychiatrists
20th-century African-American people
Yale School of Medicine faculty
People from East Chicago, Indiana
Academics from Indiana
University of Michigan School of Public Health alumni
Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Indiana University Northwest alumni
Howard University College of Medicine alumni
Members of the National Academy of Medicine