Vanessa K. Valdés, the new director of CCNY's Black Studies Program.
Literature professor, author and editor Vanessa K. Valdés is the new director of The City College of New York’s Black Studies Program.
Announcing her appointment, City College President Vincent Boudreau said: “Dr. Valdés comes to this position after years of teaching in and working with the program, and I am powerfully confident that her vision and commitment to education in this area will stand the program in good stead for years to come.
I know that our students and the program generally will benefit from her wise leadership.”
An accomplished scholar who joined CCNY in 2007, Valdés holds the title of associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese in CCNY’s Division of Humanities and the Arts. Her research interests include comparative studies of Black cultural productions throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean and Brazil.
She is the author of the critically acclaimed “Diasporic Blackness,” about the life and times of Harlem Renaissance historian, writer and activist Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Her other books include “Oshun's Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas,” a 2015 finalist for the Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions; “Let Spirit Speak!” and “The Future Is Now.”
Valdés also serves as book review editor of the literary platform “sx salon,” and series editor of “Afro-Latinx Futures” at SUNY Press. It publishes scholarly monographs and edited collections.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its role at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.