Comer, a member of Sigma Pi Phi and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternities, is now retired from teaching although he continues to research and write. In tribute to his work, James Comer was awarded the McGraw Prize in Education in 1990. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Comer Process spread across the nation and by 2010 over 500 schools incorporated some version of that model. Their success led all of New Haven’s schools to adopt the program by 1981. The Comer Process was first implemented in two elementary schools in New Haven, Connecticut in 1968. The Comer Process moves beyond acquisition of basic knowledge and instead emphasizes the creation of environments of collaboration which directly involve parents, teachers, staff and administrators in achieving measurable student outcomes.

While at Yale, Comer began to develop the “Comer Process,” a school-based intervention program designed to improve low-income students’ educational experiences and achievements. Today he is the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Child Study Center of Yale’s School of Medicine. In 1968 Comer became part of the medical faculty at Yale University and has held various positions over the years. During this time, Comer found his interest and passion in child development and education, particularly among disadvantaged students. Comer also volunteered at the Hospitality House in Washington D.C. Public Health Service, worked with the National Institute of Mental Health and interned at Saint’s Catherine’s Hospital in East Chicago. Throughout the 1960s, Comer worked in different medical fields. from Howard University in 1960 and his M.P.H. Three years later in 1959, he married Shirley Arnold, with whom he had two children. All five children graduated from college, earning 13 degrees collectively.Ĭomer graduated from Indiana University in 1956 with an A.B. Although his parents, Maggie and Hugh Comer, had little education themselves, they strongly supported their children’s education.

James Pierpont Comer, a leading black child psychiatrist and educational reformer, was born into a working class family in East Chicago, Indiana on September 25, 1934.

James comer yale child study center