Dwight A. McBride will return to Northwestern on Nov. 1 as Dean of The Graduate School and Associate Provost for Graduate Education, University Provost Daniel Linzer announced earlier this month.

McBride has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern.

He served for five years as chair of NU’s Department of African American Studies, where he developed one of a handful of African American Studies doctoral programs in the country.

He left NU three years ago for UIC, where he served as the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. McBride holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Until McBride returns in November, Simon Greenwold, Senior Associate Dean of The Graduate School, will serve as interim dean.