NYUWomxn100

2020 marked 100 years since the U.S. ratified the 19th amendment, though not all women gained access to their vote. The global legacies of women forging justice and gender equity are rich, and still in motion. NYU embraced this moment to revisit our pasts and innovate our collective futures.

NYUWomxn100 events recognized and celebrated the often unseen and unacknowledged efforts of women, particularly members of historically and contemporary marginalized communities. We invite you to visit the archive of our year-long programming, events, and exhibits.

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March 8, 2021, NYUWomxn100 celebrated the marquee culminating event of our University-wide, year-long initiative. In collaboration with the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, we hosted our inaugural NYU Dorothy Irene Height Faculty Award and NYU Trailblazer Award Ceremony.

The 2021 ceremony corresponded with the annual International Women’s Day. We were honored to have Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, co-host the awards ceremony with Dr. Lisa Coleman. Dr. Cole was the National Chair for the National Council of Negro Women; 2018-2021 (NCNW) which was led by Dorothy Height for more than 50 years.

Watch the full NYU Dorothy Irene Height Faculty Award and NYU Trailblazer Award Ceremony and our end-of-year celebration montage video!

          Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress, playwright, teacher, and author. Her most recent play and film, Notes from the Field, looks at the vulnerability of youth, inequality, the criminal justice system, and contemporary activism. The New York Times named the stage version of Notes from the Field among The Best Theater of 2016, and TIME magazine named it one of the Top 10 Plays of the year. HBO premiered the film version in February 2018. Smith co-stars on the new ABC / Shonda Rhimes series, For the People. She also appears on the hit ABC series Black-ish. She previously starred as Gloria Akalitus on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, and the National Security Advisor on NBC’s The West Wing. Roles include The American President, Rachel Getting Married, Philadelphia, Dave, Rent, and The Human Stain. In 2012, President Obama awarded her the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal. She was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for achievement in the arts. In 2015, she was named the Jefferson Lecturer, the nation’s highest honor in the humanities. She was the 2017 recipient of the Ridenhour Courage Prize. She was the 2017 recipient of the George Polk Career Award in Journalism. Smith is the founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University, where she is also a University Professor at Tisch School of the Arts.

                Jeanne L. Noble

The NYU Dorothy Irene Height Faculty Award (Posthumous)  

Jeanne L. Noble was an educator and writer. Born in Albany, GA, she graduated from Howard University and received Masters and doctorate degrees from Columbia University in Guidance and Developmental Psychology. She served as the twelfth National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and was a founding chairperson of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s National Commission on Arts and Letters. She was the first Black woman to serve on the National Board of the Girl Scouts USA and on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in The Services (DACOWITS). A resident of New York City, she was the first Black woman to move from assistant to full professor at the New York University School of Education. Professor Noble was on faculty at Steinhardt for a very long time starting in 1959 and may have been the first African American woman promoted to full professor at a major white university (Notable Black American Women). She was the national president of Delta Sigma Theta when she was hired to teach at Steinhardt. In 1972, Noble took a leave of absence from NYU to function as Executive Vice President of the National Council of Negro Women under a grant from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1996, Jeanne Noble helped to launch the Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute of the National Council of Negro Women. An innovator and visionary, Noble completed the first basic research on Black women in college (the 1950s) and published the book, "The Negro Woman’s College Education." In the 1970s, her book, "Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters," was published. Professor Noble was appointed to many federal national commissions by United States Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. Professor Noble was a leader of the Women’s Job Corps Program and served on the board of directors of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Dr. Jeanne Noble died in November 2002 at New York University hospital.

                   Raquel Willis

Raquel Willis is an activist, writer, and media strategist dedicated to elevating the dignity of marginalized people, particularly Black transgender people. Throughout her career, Raquel has held impactful positions like Director of Communications for The Ms. Foundation, executive editor of Out magazine, and as a national organizer for the Transgender Law Center (TLC).  In 2018, she founded Black Trans Circles, a project of TLC, focused on developing the leadership of Black trans women in the South and Midwest by creating healing justice spaces to work through oppression-based trauma and incubating community organizing efforts to address anti-trans murder and violence. During her time at Out, she published the Trans Obituaries Project to highlight the epidemic of violence against trans women of color and developed a community-sourced 13-point framework to end the epidemic. This project won a GLAAD Media Award. Raquel is a thought leader on gender, race, and intersectionality. She is experienced in online publications, organizing marginalized communities for social change, non-profit media strategy, and public speaking while using digital activism as a major tool of resistance and liberation. Raquel is currently working on her debut memoir detailing her coming into her identity and activism.

March 3, 2020

The Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation (OGI) was excited to launch NYUWomxn100. The NYUWomxn100 Kick Off Event honored Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole with the inaugural NYU Trailblazer Award. Dr. Cole was the first African-American woman president of Spelman College, former Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, national president and chair for the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), and noted anthropologist.

Watch the full recording of the ceremony with Dr. Johnetta B. Cole

               Dr. Johnetta. B Cole

Johnnetta B. Cole is an American anthropologist, educator, museum director, and college president. Cole was the first female African-American president of Spelman College, a historically black college, serving from 1987 to 1997. She was president of Bennett College from 2002 to 2007. During 2009–2017 she was Director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art. Johnnetta Betsch was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on October 19, 1936. Her family belonged to the African-American upper class; She was a granddaughter of Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida's first black millionaire, entrepreneur and cofounder of the Afro-American Industrial and Benefit Association, and Mary Kingsley Sammis. Sammis' great-grandparents were Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and slave owner, and his wife and former slave Anna Madgigine Jai, a Wolof princess who was originally from present-day Senegal. Her Fort George Island home is protected as Kingsley Plantation, a National Historic Landmark.

Cole enrolled at the age of 15 in Fisk University, a historically black college. She transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1957. She attended graduate school at Northwestern University, earning her Master of Arts (1959) and Doctor of Philosophy (1967) degrees in anthropology. She did her dissertation field research in Liberia, West Africa, in 1960–1961 through Northwestern University as part of their economic survey of the country. Dr. Cole was the National Chair for the National Council of Negro Women from 2018-2021 (NCNW)

A Virtual Conversation with Indya Moore

April 9, 2020

Thank you for joining NYU’s Office of Global Inclusion for a virtual conversation with Indya Moore who spoke on topics including trans-visibility, representation, and gender.

View this month's film, “Paola Makes a Wish” by Zhannat Alshanova.

Part of LS NYUWomXn100, Films in Conversation was a series that brought together a short cinematic work each month, directed by a woman, femme identified or non-binary filmmaker.

The film was selected by a LS Core or Global Liberal Studies student or alumni, who responded to the film through a form they choose.

Thank you to everyone who registered and joined us for our NYUWomxn100 partnered event, 100 Years | 100 Women Celebration of Commissions: Virtual Watch Party on August 18, 2020.

100 Years | 100 Women was led by the Park Avenue Armory and National Black Theatre, along with eight other New York City-based cultural partners:

COVID-19 and Relationship Violence: A Conversation with Tanya Selvaratnam

April 29, 2020

Thank you for joining NYU’s Office of Global Inclusion for a virtual conversation with Tanya Selvaratnam who joined us for a discussion on relationship violence during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Watch the full recording of the coversation with Tanya Sevaratnam.

Women and Migration(s)

Wednesday | June 2020

Thank you for joining NYU Washington, DC in welcoming NYU Tisch's Deb Willis and Ellyn Toscano with Cheryl Finley of Spelman's AUC Art Collective for the four-part series on Women and Migration(s).

Watch the full recording of the series: 

• Women and Migration(s): Responses in Art and History
• Women and Migration(s): Crisis
  
• Women and Migration(s): Memoir
• Women and Migration(s): Art
• Women and Migration(s): Global Interventions
• Women and Migrations(s): Diverse Stories
  

Historical Perspectives on Whiteness: An Intersectional Conversation with Dr. Nell Irvin Painter

July 8, 2020

Thank you to everyone that joined our Summer Reads conversation focusing on the works of esteemed scholar and artist, Dr. Nell Irvin Painter. This conversation focused on the first NYU Summer Reads selection, Dr. Painter’s highly acclaimed and NYTimes Bestselling publication, The History of White People.

Watch the full recording of the conversation with Dr. Nell Irvin Painter.

Alicia Garza in Conversation with Dr. Lisa Coleman

October 22, 2020

Thank you to everyone that joined us on Thursday, October 22, 2020 for a virtual talk. Alicia Garza, Principal at Black Futures and co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter was in conversation with Dr. Lisa Coleman, NYU’s Senior Vice President for Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation, and Chief Diversity Officer. Alicia’s first book, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, is now available on One World (Penguin Random House).

Co-sponsored by NYU Votes, NYUWomxn100, The Brennan Center for Justice, and Center for Black Visual Culture and Institute for African American Affairs.

Watch full recording of the conversation with Alicia Garza.

An Intimate Conversation with Layla Saad: A Year Later

November 18, 2020

Thanks for joining the intimate and intersectional conversation with Layla Saad. With an introduction by Dr. Lisa Coleman and facilitated by Melissa Carter, Global Spiritual Life. This conversation focused on Saad’s now New York Times bestselling book, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor.  

This conversation was brought to you by GSL, OGI and the NYUWomxn100 initiative, as the next installment of the Mindful Activism speaker series, inspiring the NYU community with calls to action to fight the inequalities and injustices across the world, and advance equity and inclusion.

Global Scholars & Innovators Series: A Conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

November 30, 2020

Thanks for joining us for a special event with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, artist, and author of five books, including Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back, Islands of Decolonial Love, This Accident of Being Lost, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, and the focus of our discussion, her latest novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies. Co-sponsored by the Office of Global Inclusion, NYU Womxn100, NYU BeTogether and Native Studies Forum.

Watch full recording of the conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.