Renford Reese

The South African concept of “Ubuntu” (humanity) is integrated throughout Renford Reese’s work: “I am because we are.” He is one of the only professors in the nation who has participated in the NFL Combine, and was a standout defensive back at Vanderbilt University.

Reese has been a professor in the Political Science Department at Cal Poly Pomona for 30 years. He received his Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Southern California’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development. He conducted his dissertation research on ethnic conflict and intergroup relations at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva, Switzerland. He received his Master’s degree in public policy from the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and his Bachelor’s degree in political science from Vanderbilt University.

Reese’s mother, a descendent of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, was his high school principal and his father is the late pioneer journalist, Earnest Reese. He has traveled to over 100 countries and has been the faculty coordinator of 27 Study Abroad programs in 15 countries at Cal Poly Pomona. He is a former guest columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News and the author of 13 books. He is also the author of the Starbucks “The Way I See It” Quote #294.

In 2009, Reese was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholars Award and lectured in the American Studies program at the University of Hong Kong. He is the founder of the Prison Education Project, the Reintegration Academy, and the Colorful Flags program. Reese produced a short film with Emmy-Award winner Saul Landau and has produced 8 documentaries that have won various film festival awards. He is the co-founding director of Cal Poly Pomona’s Online MPA program in Correctional Management and he is one of the co-founding executive directors of the CSU Project Rebound Consortium for formerly incarcerated students. He has developed prison education initiatives in Uganda and Scotland. He was the recipient of the George P. Hart “Faculty of the Year” award at Cal Poly Pomona.

In 2024, he was recognized by the California’s governor’s OYCR agency as the  “Youth Justice Champion” of the year. Reese was featured on ESPN’s “Realizing the Dream” series and appears as a commentator on the Biography Channel’s mini-bios on Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson. He mentored Rodney King in the late 1990s.