Harvard loses top political scientist

In another blow to Harvard's African and African American Studies department, Michael C. Dawson, one of the nation's top scholars of race and politics, is returning to the University of Chicago after only three years at Harvard. He will be the department's third professor to depart this year.

Dawson said yesterday that his decision to return to Chicago, where he taught for a decade, was driven in large part by the departures of several Harvard colleagues, including Cornel West, who left for Princeton University after a falling out with president Lawrence H. Summers; and Lawrence Bobo and Marcyliena Morgan, who took positions at Stanford University this semester.

''The research environment has changed pretty radically since I first received an offer to join the Harvard faculty," said Dawson, 53.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of African and African American Studies, called Dawson ''the leading black political scientist in the world" and said his departure was a serious loss.

Dawson said the recent controversy over Summers's presidency, which culminated in a vote of no confidence from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last month, was not a decisive factor, but did influence his decision to leave.

''I certainly haven't agreed with the tenor of the comments he made on women in science a few months ago," said Dawson, who is also part of Harvard's government department. ''They seemed to me consistent with the outlook that has led to what, for me, has been a less congenial research environment."

Dawson is particularly close to Bobo, an eminent sociologist. The two co-edit a journal, and they are writing a book based on research they have conducted together.

Bobo and Morgan are married, and they left after Summers declined to offer tenure to Morgan, a scholar of language and culture and the creator of the Hiphop Archive. She had the department's unanimous support, although some professors privately acknowledged some weakness in her tenure case.

West departed after an explosive confrontation with Summers in 2001, when the new president criticized West's teaching and scholarship. Another one of the department's biggest names, K. Anthony Appiah, also took a job at Princeton, in his case for personal reasons.

With Dawson's departure, first reported yesterday in the Harvard Crimson, the so-called dream team that Gates assembled at Harvard has been significantly diminished. While the department still retains many respected scholars, its most famous names, besides Gates and the venerable sociologist William Julius Wilson, have left. The losses of Bobo and Dawson also weaken its social science offerings in African American studies.

Gates publicly toyed with the idea of joining West and Appiah at Princeton, and he sounded uncertain about his plans last fall when Bobo and Morgan announced they were leaving.

But yesterday he said had no plans to leave.

''It's an enormous loss," Gates said. ''Basically, Harvard has lost two of the major black social scientists in the United States [Dawson and Bobo], and it will be a challenge to attempt to replace them.

''But attempt to do so we will," he said. ''Our department has been number one and is number one and will continue to be number one."

The department is in the midst of a growth spurt, with particular focus on boosting African studies and African languages. It hired five professors last year, and this year is considering hires in several fields: African economic development, African anthropology, African Anglophone literature, African politics, African-American psychology, and 20th century African-American literature, Gates said.

''I have no doubt that there are lots of people who would love to be at Harvard; I know because I get inquiries all the time," he said. Asked how he can counter the perception that the department's star is fading, he added, ''There is only one way to counter the perception that the department is in decline, and that is to recruit, recruit, recruit."

But other universities are using the perception that the department is troubled to try to poach.

''Our political scientists would see Michael at various conferences, and I'm sure they would always ask him, 'Are you ready to come back?' " University of Chicago provost Richard P. Saller said yesterday. ''As soon as we saw the least hesitation, we were ready to pounce."

Chicago has been building its Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture since Dawson, its founder, left for Harvard in 2002, and Dawson said the university is ''in position to become easily the leading center for the study of politics and race in the United States."

Dawson, who will start his new job on July 1, said Chicago also provided opportunities for other family members, particularly his wife, Alice Furumoto-Dawson, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. She will join the University of Chicago's Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research.

Dawson's interests include African-American political ideology and political behavior, and the politics of urban poverty. He and Bobo are working on a book analyzing data they have gathered in public opinion studies on the racial divide during the Bush administration.

Bobo and Dawson also co-edit the Du Bois Review, a journal of social science research on race.

Dawson said Harvard tried hard to keep him, and he also said he believes that the department will do fine without him. ''I actually think the department is very much on an upward trajectory at this point," he said.

Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.