West, professor of Afro-American studies and philosophy of religion at Harvard University, is the author of the widely-discussed best-seller Race Matters, called "a compelling blend of philosophy, sociology and political commentary" by The New York Times. His latest book credits include Keeping the Faith and Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin, which he co-wrote with Michael Lerner.

"The preeminent African-American intellectual of our time ... West is one of the few cultural critics in this country equally concerned about matters spiritual and material," said Henry Louis Gates Jr., the W.E.B. du Bois Professor of Humanities and chairman of the Afro-American Studies department at Harvard.

A 1973 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, West received his M.A. in 1975 and Ph.D in 1980 from Princeton University. He then went to the Department of Afro-American Studies at Princeton before moving to Harvard in 1994.

The Bates Fall Forum is a new event at Bates, "scheduled to continue our campus discussion and understanding of one of the major issues before us," said President Donald W. Harvard.