Meet Celebrity Guide Walter Harper

Our Gallery Night Providence Collector’s Tour this month will be led by Celebrity Guide Walter Harper, a scholar who studies African-American nineteenth and twentieth century artifacts and literature. fine art photography and first edition African American literature.

Walter Edward Harper Jr. was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Loyola University of Chicago where he received many awards, wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, and was elected President of his Senior Class.  After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with an Education minor Walter also earned a MA degree in Counseling Psychology at Loyola University and a Teacher Education Program Certificate from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Professionally Walter has worked as an elementary school teacher, child care worker, college/university admission officer, college/university financial aid officer, counselor/therapist, public health community educator, and social services agency program administrator.

Later on Walter was admitted as a graduate student at Brown University (Anthropology Department). He successfully defended his doctoral dissertation “Educational and Social Worlds in Context: An Anthropological Study of an Urban Elementary School Fifth-Grade Classroom” and formally received my PhD degree during the May 2006 Brown University Commencement ceremony. During his Brown University graduate student tenure he was a Mellon Scholars Program Graduate Student Volunteer, A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions Futures Project Special Research Assistant, Leadership Alliance Graduate Student Advisor, Meiklejohn Advising Program Advisor, and Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning Graduate Student Department Representative/Teaching Consultant.

In addition to this, Walter completed two graduate student teaching certificate programs and was an Honorable Mention for the Brown University Commencement President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Award.  Moreover, during his dissertation writing period Walter received a Rhode Island Foundation Fellowship to conduct a comparative study of urban children in three United States metropolitan cities (Chicago, Illinois, Providence, Rhode Island, and Berkeley, California) and Roma children in Budapest, Hungary. After graduation Walter worked as an Adjunct Professor at Salve Regina University, Tufts University, and the University of Rhode Island and completed a three year appointment as Visiting Anthropology Department Scholar at Brown University.

Currently he is a Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University. His scholarly research interests focus on the anthropology of childhood, anthropology and United States culture, educational anthropology, ethnicity/race studies, gender, psychological anthropology, social/educational inequality, and urban anthropology.