Alfred Wade Boykin is an American psychology professor known for his work in the field of education. He is a member of the faculty of Howard University. He has made contributions to the study of academic discrepancies between African American children and Caucasian children. Through his work at the Capstone Institute at Howard University he has created plans for implementations of educational reform.
Education
Boykin completed his undergraduate work at Hampton University, graduating in 1968. He went on to get his M.A. and PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Michigan.
Career
After obtaining his PhD from the University of Michigan, Boykin became an associate professor at Cornell where he gained tenure. In 1994, Boykin took a job at Howard University. From 1994 to 2004 he was the co-director of the National Center for Research on the Education of Students (now called Capstone). Capstone is devoted to researching and implementing school reform and improvement. These plans are based upon the Talent Development model of schooling. After concluding his service to Capstone, Boykin remained at Howard as a professor and director of the graduate psychology program. He was also a fellow at the Institute for Comparative Human Cognition and an adjunct associate professor in the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, both at Rockefeller University. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for a year and was called as a member of the Emergency Commission on Urban Children. He was a member of a National Academy of Education panel and an American Educational Research Association panel. He was also co-director of the Task Force on the Relevance of the Social Sciences to the Black Experience at Yale University. Additionally, he was a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel during President George H. W. Bush's term. On this panel he advised the President and Secretary of Education on issues regarding effective mathematic instruction. He is a member of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Educational Disparities, a panel member for the National Minority Student Achievement Network, a board member for Project Grad USA, and a member of multiple editorial boards.