Creative writing professor appointed interim dean of graduate and professional studies

Photo: Courtesy of Emerson College
November 1, 2021
Creative writing professor Kim McLarin, who leads the college’s MFA in popular fiction writing and publishing, is set to become the interim dean of graduate and professional studies in January, Interim President Bill Gilligan announced Monday.
McLarin will replace Jan Roberts-Breslin, who was promoted to serve as the interim provost beginning later this month to fill the vacancy left by the impending departure of Michaele Whelan. Gilligan wrote that McLarin is “well positioned” to take on the role. She will serve in the interim position until a new provost is hired, Gilligan said.
Gilligan previously told The Beacon that his successor would hire a new provost.
As Interim Dean McLarin will work alongside other deans and faculty members to create new graduate programs and strengthen existing ones, Gilligan said. She will also work to advance the college’s professional studies programming and serve as the primary contact for the graduate student government association and graduate student development.
McLarin, who came to Emerson in 2003, has served as the director of the MFA program since 2016, Gilligan said. She is an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and playwright.
Prior to coming to Emerson, McLarin was a faculty member in the Masters of Fine Arts program at Fairfield University and a journalism professor at Northeastern University. She has penned three novels, a series of essay collections, and James Baldwin’s Another Country: Bookmarked, a bibilomemoir.
McLarin is a former staff writer for The Associated Press, The Philadelphia Enquirer, and The New York Times.
Alice
Apr 30, 2022 at 9:59 pm
You left some details out: https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/09/professor-who-says-blacks-and-whites-cannot-be-friends-promoted-to-dean-at-emerson-college/
Rikki Brandenburg
Dec 12, 2021 at 8:34 am
If her remarks were the remarks of a white person, that person would be investigated and made out to be the racist they are. This woman is clearly a racist and is being promoted for it. Equality is not the American way!
Jim T.
Nov 10, 2021 at 5:45 pm
As usual, the pronoun brigade loves racists.
As long as they’re the right color.
Eric Schodde
Nov 10, 2021 at 5:01 pm
So, The more the students dislike a teacher or the teacher’s views the more likely the teacher will be promoted just to show the students (who pay the salary of the teacher/campus staff) that they can. You would think the university would want a positive relationship with its students? Also, just because she is filled with self-loathing and cant’ make a non-black genuine friend does not mean the rest of the World shares her hatred of both herself and anybody who does not look like her.
Marcia
Nov 9, 2021 at 6:27 am
Her idea that black women can not have a true friendship with white women shows she is a racist. Friendship comes with like thoughts and feelings and emotions from the heart. IT DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH SKIN COLOR.
Mrs. Marcia Chester