Background

Solomon Ogbede Iyasere was born on January 18, 1940, in Benin City, Nigeria. He was the son of the late Johnson Uigwe and Esimotogiwa Okoro Iyasere.

Education

Solomon Ogbede Iyasere attended Amadu Bello University, and got there his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964. In 1967, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors at the State University of New York. At College at New Paltz, Solomon got a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science degrees, in 1968, and at the State University of New York at Binghamton, he got Ph.D., in 1972.

Career

Hired as an assistant professor to teach Shakespeare and literary criticism, Solomon earned early tenure and promotion to associate professor in 1974 and became a full professor in 1978.

As founding Director of Diversity Services (1988-92), Solomon laid the groundwork for inclusive excellence and collaborated to establish effective policies and guidelines to diversify faculty and staff. He helped revise the general education curriculum to include multicultural and international dimensions and designed the English Single-Subject Teacher Preparation program to incorporate multiculturalism.

He developed the MA in Teaching of English, now the cornerstone for educating community college writing teachers in the region. He chaired the Department of English and Communications (1992-98), co-founded the Career Beginnings Program and the Ernest Williams, Jr. Scholarship Fund, and served on numerous departmental and university-wide committees.

Achievements

• Solomon developed and taught more than 35 courses in creative writing, world literature, Shakespeare, non-western literature, African literature, and African-American literature. He published extensively on the oral tradition in African and African-American literature, earning international recognition as a pioneering scholar of African literature, rhetorical critic, and essayist who distinguished Eurocentric and Afro-centric forms of literary criticism and devised a new approach, which he termed "cultural formalism," to analyze African and African-American literature.
  
  Solomon's most highly regarded scholarship includes analyses of Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison's Beloved and Sula and of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart , as well as publications on Othello, including Racial Issues in Shakespeare's Othello; "Race Matters: Approaches to Shakespeare's Othello"; and "Pardon Me, Professor, Why Do I Have to Read Othello?".
  
  Solomon's legacy includes his founding of Orpheus, CSUB's annual student literary journal. Since 1973, Orpheus has published the work of more than 2,500 students, several of whom have become national award-winning writers and playwrights.
  
  He received the Millie Ablin Excellence Award in Teaching in 1985-86; the Exceptional Merit Award for Excellence in Teaching in numerous years; was a Wang Award and Professor of the Year nominee; and was one of 50 professors selected nationwide by the American Association for Higher Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, for extraordinary leadership in teaching, scholarship, and service.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Understanding "Things Fall Apart"

    (Selected Essays and Criticisms)

  • Understanding Toni Morrison's "Beloved" and "Sula"

    (Selected Essays and Criticisms)

  • Toni Morrison

Connections

In 1974, Solomon married a woman named Marla. They had three children: Christiana, Solomon Ogbede, Jr., Julia.

Father:

Johnson Uigwe

Mother:

Esimotogiwa Iyasere

Wife:

Marla Wynn Mudar Iyasere

Daughter:

Christiana Adesua Modupe Iyasere

Son:

Solomon Ogbede Iyasere, Jr.

Daughter:

Julia Esimotogiwa Iyasere

Grandson:

Nayan Iyasere Das

granddaughter :

Lola Iyasere Das

granddaughter :

Ayla Iyasere Das