Division of Humanities & the Arts

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Congratulations to the Class of 2026!

Commencement - Friday, May 29th, 10:00 am

What's happening in Humanities and the Arts?

Read the latest issue of our newsletter:

News from the Division of Humanities & the Arts

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Friends,

Welcome, or welcome back, as we start a new academic year!

As the world faces challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), political polarization, and global conflict, Humanities and the Arts at City College is growing precisely because the values and capacities that we foster in students are precisely what individuals and the world need in order to navigate changing and challenging times. Last year we saw an increase of 9.7% in the number of students majoring in Humanities and Arts programs, bringing the number of undergraduates in H&A to over 2,300, in addition to 350 graduate students. This semester, we welcome 533 new undergraduate matriculants to H&A. Our approach to Humanities and Arts education at City College is notable, and it explains why so many students choose to major in our nine departments (English, History, Art, Music, Black Studies, Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Media and Communication Arts, and Theatre and Speech).

We foreground and prioritize joy. We cultivate habits of observation, analysis, and historical awareness that enrich our experiences of daily life, we celebrate the pleasures provided by various art forms, we support the satisfactions of creativity, and we foster communication and understanding across cultural differences. We emphasize the importance of using college as a time to expand horizons through exploring new subjects and disciplines, and our new student course, “Introduction to Global Humanities and Arts,” provides a great opportunity to do just this.

We also provide an exploration-oriented bridge to careers. Our Humanities Internships program, supported with a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, is our core program for providing students with funded opportunities to try on various jobs and workplaces in non-profit, cultural, and service organizations. Other career support includes our collaboration with the Career and Professional Development Institute and adding the Braven Career Accelerator to our course offerings.

This semester a faculty committee is engaging in detailed discussions about what AI means for how we teach our disciplines and prepare students for today’s brave new world. AI may be able to draft convincing documents of various sorts. It may be able to sift through large bodies of information to answer queries efficiently. It may be able to predict, based on algorithms and patterns, how you would enjoy spending your next vacation. But AI cannot cultivate a deep sensibility about others, derived from the intersection of expressive art forms and first-hand lived interactions and experiences. It cannot communicate that sensibility as empathy and effectively lead a team of people. It cannot create a work of art that is meaningfully unique in the context of a cultural heritage. These are the things in which Humanities and Arts students excel.

Curiosity. Exploration. Success. It all starts in Humanities and Arts.

Sincerely,

Renata Kobetts Miller, Dean

The Division of Humanities and the Arts

New to the Division?

Welcome! If you’re curious about exploring and improving your talents, let us connect you with others who share your creative and scholarly interests. Join our division as we create the next generation of writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, actors, educators, and scholars.

Check out our new page listing student workshops:

Humanities & the Arts Workshops

Professor Nickolas Pappas is named the 2026-27 Stuart Z. Katz Professor

About Profesor Nickolas Pappas

Professor Pappas's research concentrates on ancient philosophy and aesthetics. In the past decade, he has developed an interest in how the thinkers of the ancient world, particularly Plato, perceived foreigners, immigrants, and others who were either ethnically or linguistically different.

“There were many, often surprising categories for understanding different types of strangers,” he said. “What is striking to me is that those categories for faraway people informed even how people saw their nearest neighbors.”

To deepen his understanding of categories for strangers, Pappas will travel to Greece this summer to visit lesser-known, small museums that hold relics from civilizations, such as Egypt and Syria. He expects that examining these artifacts will yield insights into Plato’s stereotypes about foreigners that appear in his political writings.

These explorations will inform Pappas’s upcoming book, “Strangers in the House of Philosophy,” the subject of his Stuart Z. Katz Lecture to be delivered at his formal installation on Monday, October 26.

About the Stuart Z. Katz Professorship

The Stuart Z. Katz Professorship in the Humanities & the Arts at The City College of New York established in 2017 by a generous gift from Mr. Stuart Z. Katz, a 1964 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of CCNY supports the research and creative activity of one outstanding professorial faculty member in the Division of Humanities & the Arts for an academic year.

Two H&A faculty earn CUNY Distinguished Professorships for excellence

New H&A Distinguished Professors Roberts and Killen

Conferred by the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees, Distinguished Professorships are reserved for faculty with records of exceptional performance by national and international standards of excellence in their profession.

The title is the highest academic honor that CUNY can offer its faculty. The Division of Humanities and Arts is proud to introduce its two newest Distinguished Professors: Andreas Killen (History) and Jennifer Roberts (Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures). Read more here.

Theatre and Speech Alum, Victor Almanzar Accepts the Townsend Harris Award and Shares His Journey from the Military to the Stage

Victor Almanzar is a New York-based actor who immigrated from the Dominican Republic at an early age. Before pursuing acting, Victor served in the United States Marine Corps, completing tours in Kosovo and Iraq. His journey into acting began at City College of New York, where discovering the Theater and Speech program rekindled his passion for the performing arts. At City College, he earned recognition, awards, and encouragement from professors who inspired him to consider acting as a serious career. Since then, he has performed on the New York stage, in regional theaters, and in London. He appeared as Oswaldo in the Pulitzer Prize-winning production of Between Riverside and Crazy at The Atlantic Theater and Second Stage Theater (NYC) and the Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago). He was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for his role in Between Riverside and Crazy and is a proud lifetime member of The Actors Studio.

Link: Bio — Victor Almanzar