Dr. Aminata Diop, Executive Assistant to the Dean

Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 5 - Issue 2 - June 2022

Dr. Aminata Diop joined The City College of New York School of Education as the Executive Assistant to the Dean in 2014. Back then, she held four degrees from New York University (A.S., B.S., M.A., and M.P.A.), where she gained experience in program development, operations management, budget administration, staff supervision, advising, and recruitment.

In 2015, Aminata was accepted as a Ph.D. student at the CUNY Graduate Center. In April 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, she defended her dissertation, which focused on the transnational and multicultural experiences of American citizens with Senegalese-born parents. Specifically, she studied the ways in which Senegalese-American children position and reposition themselves as they (re)construct and (re)negotiate their transnational identity upon returning to the U.S. from Senegal. Her research contributes to the literature on immigrant students of African descent, transnational mothering, and integration experiences of transnationalized children to illuminate how the growth of the immigrant population in the U.S. complicates dominant ideologies of nationalism and mainstream perceptions of normal family structures.

When teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, Aminata uses transformative experiences of both her students and herself. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that the purpose of education is to help students understand, analyze, and adequately criticize the education system that they are part of. Through critical thinking and experiential learning, she teaches students to be critical consumers of knowledge by empowering them to examine assumptions and articulate arguments that support empirical research and theory. Aminata also challenges students to reflect on their own experiences and actions as they relate to issues of social inequality.

As an immigrant woman of African descent and a scholar and educator of color with a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice, Aminata seeks to both inspire and empower her students to challenge—rather than reinforce—social hierarchies and injustice. The synergistic nature of her administrative work, teaching, and research make her an invaluable asset to the School of Education!