Historian Judith Stein Appointed CUNY Distinguished Professor

The University's Board of Trustees appointed City College of New York historian and author Dr. Judith Stein a University Distinguished Professor at its January 28 meeting. The appointment recognizes Professor Stein's outstanding scholarship over the past four decades, which has helped shape the study of 20th century U.S. history, labor history, African-American history and political economy. 

The title of Distinguished Professor is conferred on an individual by the University Board of Trustees after completion of reviews at the campus level and the University level in recognition of exceptional scholarly achievement. 

"Judith Stein has been a leader of The City College history department for decades, teaching hundreds of students with passion and verve, mentoring generations of faculty and serving on the executive committees of the history departments at CCNY and the Graduate Center," said Dr. Maurizio Trevisan, City College interim provost, in supporting her promotion.

A former Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Professor Stein's accomplishments include three critically acclaimed monographs: 

•  "The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society" (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1986);
   
• "Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy and the Decline of Liberalism" (The University of North Carolina Press, 1998) and

•  "Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies" (Yale University Press, 2011).  

More than 25 years after its publication, "The World of Marcus Garvey" is still considered the most important study of the leader of the largest mass movement in African-American history. 

Professor Stein is a graduate of Vassar College (BA) and earned her PhD at Yale University. She is a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. 

In 2005, she was one of 31 prominent scholars chosen as Fulbright Distinguished Chairs by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, which administers the Fulbright Scholar Program. Under the award, she spent a semester in 2006 as the Nikolay V. Sivachev Distinguished Chair in American History at Moscow State University. 

She is the third City College faculty member to be named a CUNY Distinguished Professor since 2011. The others are Dr. Mitchell Schaffler, distinguished professor of biomedical engineering, and Dr. V.P. Nair, distinguished professor of physics.