Debra Williams

Debra Williams
English Major
Mellow Mays Fellow

Debra walked away from her job managing a Desktop Publishing department in an Investment Bank after feeling unfulfilled for several years. She is now investing in her education and personal growth. She started her studies at CCNY in Secondary Education with a concentration in Mathematics, but changed course after discovering a passion and talent for literature and research. Debra is fascinated by the ways literature can inspire personal and social change, and how writers can be powerful even when they are socially powerless. She believes that many basic social issues that writers revealed in their work centuries ago remain prevalent in the work of writers today. Debra hopes to earn a doctoral degree and to teach on a college level. Her research interests at present are focused on how literature responds to society and to historical events, how an author's work resonates with the social and political challenges of his or her time and place, and how literature can be a powerful catalyst for change when writers challenge common opinions and social structures.