• Barbara Callaway
  • Barbara Callaway
  • Emerita
  • Specialties:

    African Politics, Women and Politics

  • Bio:

    Barbara Callaway is an emerita professor of political science at Rutgers University who had a distinguished career at Rutgers as associate provost (first in Newark and then in New Brunswick), acting dean of the College of Nursing in 1976, and dean of the Graduate School in New Brunswick in 1990.

    Callaway completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX in 1962. The summer of her sophomore year there, she went to Nigeria to participate in Operation Crossroads Africa. There she developed a lifelong interest in West Africa, women and development, and women in politics. She earned her M.A. in African studies at Boston University in 1963 and her Ph.D. in government from Harvard University in 1969.

    In 1972, she was recruited to Rutgers College, where she became the first female professor of political science. As a Fulbright Professor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she spent two years in Nigeria and one year in Ghana conducting research. Two of Callaway’s five books have won national awards: Women and Islam in West Africa won the Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association, and Hildegard Peplau, Psychiatric Nurse of the Century won the American Nurses Association Book of the Year award.

    Callaway also had a long career in academic administration at Rutgers. She served as associate provost, first in Newark and then in New Brunswick. In 1976, she was appointed acting dean of the College of Nursing. In New Brunswick, she served as dean of the Graduate School in 1990.

    Barbara Callaway retired in 2010, after 38 years at Rutgers.