Michele Moody-Adams

Michele Moody-Adams is an American philosopher and academic administrator. Between July 1, 2009, and September 2011, she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education at Columbia University. She was the first woman and first African-American to hold the post. She has since resigned as dean, citing the decreasing autonomy of Columbia College. She remains a faculty member in the department of philosophy. In 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Moody-Adams grew up in Chicago on the Southside. Her father was a schoolteacher, and they shared a love for opera and classical music. She attended Wellesley College, graduating in 1978 with a B.A. in philosophy. She then studied at Somerville College, Oxford, on a Marshall Scholarship, receiving a B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics in 1980. In 1986, she earned her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University, with a dissertation on "Moral Philosophy Naturalized: Morality and Mitigated Skepticism in Hume" under John Rawls. Before joining Cornell University in 2000, she was a professor of philosophy and associate dean for undergraduate education at Indiana University. At Cornell, she served as vice provost for undergraduate education and Hutchinson Professor of Ethics and Public Life. In 2009, she became Dean of Columbia College, a position she resigned from in 2011 due to concerns about administrative changes. She currently holds a tenured position as Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia. Her books include 'Fieldwork in Familiar Places' (1997), which challenges morality, culture, and objectivity, and 'Making Space for Justice' (2022), which explores social justice movements and political hope.