@Macaulay Faculty Scholars featuring Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés

@ Macaulay Faculty Scholars is a new series that will spotlight our faculty. Our first speaker will be Interim Dean, Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés in conversation with Macaulay Chief Academic Officer Joe Ugoretz. Dr. Valdés shares her research on Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, an advocate for Puerto Rican independence and catalyst of the Harlem Renaissance.

Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés
Interim Dean

Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés is the Interim Dean of the Macaulay Honors College. She is the former director of the Black Studies Program at The City College of New York-CUNY. A graduate of Yale and Vanderbilt Universities, and a Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, her research interests focus on the cultural production of Black peoples throughout the Americas: the United States and Latin America, including Brazil, and the Caribbean. She is the editor of The Future Is Now: A New Look at African Diaspora Studies (2012) and Let Spirit Speak! Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora (2012). She is the author of Oshun’s Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas (2014) and Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (2017). Her latest book, Racialized Visions: Haiti and the Hispanic Caribbean (2020) is an edited collection that re-centers Haiti in the disciplines of Caribbean, and more broadly, Latin American Studies.

Dr. Joseph Ugoretz
Chief Academic Officer

Joseph Ugoretz earned his masters degree in the Teaching of English at Columbia University Teachers College, and his doctorate at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is currently Senior Associate Dean and Chief Academic Officer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is also an adjunct faculty member of the CUNY Graduate Center’s Certificate Program in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy.