Henry Louis Gates Jr., the W.E.B. DuBois professor of the humanities and chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, said in a Kennedy School press release that Wilson's appointment positions Harvard to assume a national leadership role in shaping public policy decisions regarding race and class.
"For Afro-American Studies, Wilson will be the pivotal person in our social sciences component, complementing the considerable strength we have in cultural studies," Gates said. "This is a great day for Harvard, and a great day for Afro-American Studies!"
Wilson said he plans to continue his work on issues of urban inequality, race and class, in addition to setting up research sites in Boston similar to ones he has in Chicago.
Also, Wilson said he hopes to develop a course in cross-cultural studies of urban inequality, focusing on differences between how the United States and Europe deal with urban problems.
Wilson received national attention and acclaim for his groundbreaking work in The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy, named as one of the 16 best books published in 1987, by The New York Times Book Review, according to the press release.
Wilson is the former chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago and the past president of both the American Sociological Association and the Consortium of Social Science Associations.
He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. He has also been awarded 22 honorary doctorates.
According to Carnesale, the addition of Wilson further reinforces Harvard's standing as the nation's leading institution for sociology and Afro-American Studies.
"We've been trying to get Wilson to come to Harvard for a long time. The effort started long before I was dean [of the Kennedy School]," Carnesale said.
"He's at a stage in his life when he'd like to make a shift to policy, and the Kennedy School and Harvard is the best place to do that.," Carnesale added