Division of Humanities & the Arts

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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.

What's happening in Humanities and the Arts?

Read the latest issue of our newsletter:

News from the Division of Humanities & the Arts

Check out our new page listing student workshops:

Humanities & the Arts Workshops

2025 Stuart Z. Katz Professorship Installation

A special celebration for Professor Antonio Tibaldi as the 2025-2065 Stuart Z. Katz Professor in Humanities and the Arts

Tuesday, October 28 · 4:30 pm EDT

Shepard Hall · Room 350

About Professor Antonio Tibaldi

Professor Tibaldi has worked as writer/director in the film industries of Europe, Australia and North America. His films have been presented at festivals such as Berlin, Sundance, San Sebastian, Rotterdam; and released by companies such as Miramax, Warner Bros., and Lion's Gate. He collaborates with UNTV (United Nations TV) making documentaries shedding light on under-reported realities in South and Central America, Africa, and Asia. In 2012, his feature documentary [S] COMPARSE won the Brooklyn Film Festival. GODKA CIRKA (2014) (co-directed with MFA '12 graduate Al Lora) screened at Sundance and won the Gaudí award and Michael Moore's Traverse City Film festival in 2014. His documentary THY FATHER'S CHAIR (2015) was a New York Times Critic's Pick. More recently his feature film WE ARE LIVING THINGS (2021) screened at the Deauville Festival of American Cinema and was released theatrically in the US, Canada and the UK by Juno Films. GORGONA (2022) won the Best Documentary award at the prestigious Festival dei Popoli, in Florence, Italy; Europe's oldest documentary film festival.

Antonio received a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship (in Film & Video).

About 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