Home

Homepage

Meet the Director

Timothy Ready was appointed Director of the Lewis Walker Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnic Relations on January 1, 2008 with a joint appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. An anthropologist by training, he has worked as a program administrator, researcher and teacher on issues related to racial and ethnic diversity and economic justice. Prior to his arrival at Western Michigan University, Dr. Ready was Director of Research at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, where he researched and wrote on issues related to Latino education, health, housing, community development and immigration.

Dr. Ready also served as senior program officer at the National Research Council in Washington, DC. While there, he directed three studies on the education of minority and economically disadvantaged young people that resulted in books published by the National Academies Press. He also served as Assistant Vice President for Community and Minority Programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges and was responsible for designing and directing Project 3000 by 2000, the national diversity campaign for the nation’s 126 medical schools during the 1990s. In that capacity, he was responsible for administering the Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI), a $14 million grants program jointly funded by the Robert Wood Johnson and W.K Kellogg Foundations. The HPPI funded 23 community education partnerships designed to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who are both interested in and academically prepared to pursue careers in medicine, nursing, public health and related fields. One of those grants was awarded to Western Michigan University.

Dr. Ready also was a member of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology of the Catholic University of America. A native of Monroe, Michigan, he holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD from Michigan State University. He is married to Elizabeth (Crissy) Koshy Ready and is the proud father of two daughters, Shantha and Stephanie.

Tim and Crissy have deep roots in Kalamazoo, as Crissy’s family lived in the area for more than 30 years. Crissy is a speech pathologist with a master’s degree from Michigan State University. She also attended Western Michigan University and is a graduate of Portage Northern High School. Her late father, K.T. Koshy, was a research scientist for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and her mother, Accamma, taught home economics in the Kalamazoo Public Schools.