Dr. Wendy Osefo talked with BLACK ENTERPRISE about her exciting new appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Wesleyan University.
The Real Housewives of Potomac star returned for season 9 and allowed viewers to watch her step away from her previous Assistant Professor teaching position at Johns Hopkins University to focus on herself and her family. After some much-needed R&R, Osefo is proud to announce her return to academia as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Wesleyan University, where she created a new course “The Sociology of Reality TV.”
The political commentator took the summer off with her family and it was during her travels that she had an “epiphany” on how she wanted to return to teaching.
“I really want to teach a course in which I am able to marry my academic career with some of the work I’m doing now and that is on reality TV,” Osefo told BE.
“So I just started writing and writing and one sentence led to two and then two sentences led to four pages. And then eventually I had all of these pages where I was like, I want to do a class. And I wrote up a class and it’s titled The Sociology of Reality TV.”
Osefo designed an innovative new course from the ground up, delving into how reality television both mirrors and shapes societal views on race, skin tone, and ethnicity in American culture. As a Nigerian-American television personality, progressive political commentator, entrepreneur, and award-winning researcher, Osefo offers a unique and multifaceted perspective in her new role.
Her extensive experience includes frequent appearances on major networks such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, as well as her role as a veteran cast member of The Real Housewives of Potomac, solidifying her reputation as a trusted authority on political and social issues. After developing the coursework, it took no time to get the class picked up by a prestigious institution.
“I had the readings and I had these themes for each week and I was like, ‘Let me pitch this to different universities to see who will be interested in this.’ And, you know, lucky for me, the first university I pitched it to, they were like, ‘We love this.’”
The Distinguished Professor title is reserved for tenured faculty members who have earned national or international acclaim for their scholarship and contributions to their field. This prestigious designation is awarded to a select few, highlighting their exceptional achievements and impact.
It means even more to Osefo, who achieved the accomplishment as a first-generation Nigerian-American and Black woman.
“They [Wesleyan University] were like, ‘No, we want you to be a Distinguished Professor.’ And that is something that is just so rewarding because in my career as a professor, one thing I didn’t mention was I didn’t feel appreciated,” she shared.
“I didn’t feel like people saw the value in what I brought to the institution, but for Wesleyan, as much prestige as they have, to see me and to say, ‘Not only do we want you, but we want you to have the title of Distinguished Professor,’ I was like, this is a sign.”
“It’s good sometimes to take a step back because when we take steps back, it often leads to us taking steps up. And that’s exactly what happened,” she added.
Press play above for the full interview and catch Dr. Wendy Osefo on Season 9 of The Real Housewives of Potomac on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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