James M. Lang

James M. Lang is an Emeritus Professor of English at Assumption College in Worcester, MA. He is the author of five books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016) and Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013).

Lang writes a regular column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education. His book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Time. He edits a series of books on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press.

He is the recipient of a a 2016 Fulbright Specialist Grant (Colombia), and the 2019 Paul Ziegler Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship at Assumption University. He has a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in English from St. Louis University, and a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University.