The October 14, 2019 edition of @bronxtalk on @BronxnetTV hosted by Gary Axelbank, Publisher of thisistheBronx.info, featured two Bronx educators, MCNY’s Dr. Lessie Branch, Associate Dean of the School for Business and senior fellow at the Du Bois Bunche Center for Public Policy and Dr. Edward Summers, Executive Director at The Bronx Private Industry Council. The episode, titled BronxTalk: The Borough of Universities discusses a new look at higher education. Guests, Dr.’s Branch and Summers are writing an essay series featured in Diverse Magazine which analyzes the current state of higher education in the Bronx and beyond.
“Rethinking college is crucial. Doing what has always been done in the face of a shifting higher education landscape is not a sustainable model,” says Dr. Branch, “We are seeing many institutions in higher education being pushed to the brink. Institutions must think outside of the box about their educational model, academic offerings and approaches to education in the 21st century and beyond! This is why our solutions-oriented series, ‘Stepping Away from the Brink’, published in Diverse Issues in Education, is so important and timely!”
About Dr. Lessie Branch
Dr. Lessie Branch is Associate Professor and Associate Dean in the School for Business at Metropolitan College of New York. She is a Racial Policy Scholar, a Fulbright Specialist in Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Politics, Senior Research Fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College and a Scholar with Scholars Strategy Network.
Dr. Branch has a Ph.D. and an M. Phil from Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, as well as an MA in Political Science from the New School of Social Research. She completed her BA in Political Science at Fordham University.
Her research examines the gulf between Black optimism about group progress and the actual data on continuing disparities and potentially speaks to wider questions of social knowledge, social beliefs and relative group position; even to questions of “consciousness” and ontology. She is the author of Optimism At All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America with University of Massachusetts Press.
