Our Dean, María E. Pérez y González
María E. Pérez y González, Ph.D. (Fordham University), is a first-generation Puerto Rican born in Brooklyn, New York, and first-generation college graduate. As a professor in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College for more than 30 years, she served on numerous campus-wide committees (beginning as an adjunct lecturer), with 17 as chair. During her tenure, seat enrollments doubled and numerous campus-wide events brought students, staff, faculty, and alumni together, including the annual multi-day The Possible Dream: Latinx Arts, Communities and Leadership Encuentro, now nearing its second decade. She became the first Faculty Council Chairperson-elect of Latinx heritage in 2009. In 2010, she was selected by her peers as a member of Phi Beta Kappa-Rho of New York Chapter and is a 2011 graduate of the Harvard Management Development Program. In 2016, faculty honored her with the Eric M. Steinberg Award for College Citizenship. Her research includes DiaspoRicans, Latinxs, women in ministry, and Pentecostals, and she is the author of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. (2000) and co-editor of Puerto Rican Studies in the City University of New York: The First 50 Years (2021). She is a Fellow of the 2022–23 Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo.
At the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts, she is keenly aware of the exceptional opportunity students have to hone and professionalize their talents and skills under the guidance of its award-winning faculty and staff. The school is a partner in New York City's artistic future and at the artistic center of CUNY, which serves diverse populations of students, including first-generation and working-class college students. Interim Dean Pérez y González will work toward assisting students in building up their social capital within the arts, media, and entertainment industries.
Involved from a young age, Pérez y González found her voice through the arts. She learned leadership skills as she acted in various community theater productions, performed with a professional singing group, Los Precursores del Rey, and played the Puerto Rican Pentecostal tambourine. As a B.A./M.A. student of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), she was an active member of the Kuumba Players, an African American theatrical student organization, and, as student government secretary, she presided over the budget of Essential Services—the media-based student organizations. She served on the board of trustees of the Hispanic Young Peoples' Alternatives in Sunset Park, which began as a chorus and transformed into a middle school not-for-profit comprehensive after-school arts program.
Pérez y González's children excel in the arts, with one having graduated from the Brooklyn College B.F.A. Program in Acting (also a dramatic writer) and the youngest being a self-taught singer-songwriter and musician. She has witnessed the power of healing through the arts and credits the arts with having helped save the lives of family members through illness, both physical and mental, especially during the pandemic.
In 2021 and 2022, she taught an Inter-Cultural Competency course for BC College Options (PRLS 2105 New York Latinx Culture and the Arts), centered around Steven Spielberg's reimagined West Side Story (2021) film, and co-organized and co-hosted with renowned U.S. historian Professor Emerita Virginia Sánchez Korrol, the West Side Story: The Brooklyn Connection Lecture Series, which included highly acclaimed scholars and Academy Award–winning creative artists connected to the film, such as Ernesto Acevedo Muñoz (film scholar), Victor Cruz (actor/creator), Juan González (broadcast journalist), Tony Kushner (dramatic writer), Bobby Sanabria (musician), Virginia Sánchez Korrol (historian), Steven Spielberg (director/producer), and Jeanine Tesori (musician). View PRLS-West Side Story article.
With emphasis on the power of the arts to heal and connect people in extraordinary ways, it is with great enthusiasm that Interim Dean Pérez y González embarks on this new journey in partnership with the VMPA students, staff, and faculty.
Watch the dean's welcome video.
Contact Information
School of Visual Media and Performing Arts
1234 Boylan Hall
P: 718.951.3180
F: 718.951.3188
María E. Pérez y González, Ph.D.
Interim Dean, School of Visual Media and Performing Arts
E: MariaPG@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Stephanie Jensen-Moulton
Faculty Associate to the Dean
E: SJensenMoulton@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Melanie Hill-Cantey
Operations Manager
E: Melanie.HillCantey@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Vladlena Varshavskaya
Administrative Executive Coordinator
E: V.Varshavskaya@brooklyn.cuny.edu
