9th Annual Art & Soul Virtual Gala
Supporting and providing healthcare in rural Haiti
Featuring a special performance by Grammy Award Winners Wyclef Jean & Jerry Wonda
Honorees
Carole Berotte Joseph, Ph.D.
CUNY University Professor Emeritus and past President of the Bronx Community College and Massachusetts Bay Community College
Carole M. Berotte Joseph, PhD is an emeritus University Professor from CUNY and past President of the Bronx Community College and Massachusetts Bay Community College. She was the first person of Haitian descent to become a college president in the US.
During her 45 year career in education, Berotte Joseph held several leadership positions in both the US and abroad. She worked as the Deputy Chief of Party for FHI 360’s project, Let's Learn to Read and Write (Ann Ale), in Haiti, and was responsible for the launch and implementation of this major literacy and teacher development project in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Education. In the US, her career in higher education began at the City College of New York/CUNY in Bilingual Teacher Education, where she served as School of Education faculty at both the graduate and undergraduate levels for over 20 years. She later served as Chief Academic Officer and Dean of Academic Affairs at Dutchess Community College/SUNY and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College/CUNY. Outside of the classroom, she worked to establish the first Haitian Bilingual Parent & Teacher Training program (Project HAPTT) and served as the Principal Investigator and first Director of the statewide HABETAC, the Haitian Bilingual/ESL Technical Assistance Center in New York.
An expert in the field of bilingual/multicultural education, Berotte Joseph is a socio-linguist who has authored, edited, and translated many books, articles, and reports on education, immigration, and language policy issues facing Haitian communities. Her edited volume, The Haitian Creole Language: History, Structure, Use and Education (2010 remains a substantial contribution to the field. She also advocated for, conceptualized, and implemented the original Dreamer’s legislation with President Obama’s staff and other national leaders in Washington, DC to support higher education for undocumented students.
Berotte Joseph has chaired several committees and boards, both internationally and nationally. She served on the Advisory Board of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College Columbia University and on the AACC’s Presidents’ Academy to plan professional development for community college presidents throughout the US. She also served on the Bronx Borough President’s Higher Education Consortium, the CUNY Chancellor’s Haiti Higher Education Task Force, which established the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute, the Haitian Education Steering Committee in Haiti, and on several editorial boards including the Journal of Haitian Studies and Wadabagei.
Berotte Joseph received a B.A. in Spanish with minors in French and Education from York College, CUNY; M.A. in Curriculum & Teaching in Bilingual Education from Fordham University, and Ph.D in Sociolinguistics and Bilingual Education from New York University. Berotte Joseph was born in Haiti and grew up in New York City. She is fluent in four languages: Haitian Creole, French, Spanish and English.
Elizabeth H. Bradley, PhD
- President, Vassar College
Elizabeth H. Bradley, PhD has served as President of Vassar College since July 2017. In that time, she has led the College to establish new programs and partnerships in India, Rwanda, and China to bring the model of liberal arts higher education to these settings. In addition, Bradley has collaborated with Columbia University creating a 5-year BA-MPH program for Vassar students. Bradley has most recently served on Governor Cuomo’s NY Forward Re-Opening Advisory Committee and helped draft the guidelines for NY higher education re-opening in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. She serves on the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and Board of Trustees at Vassar Brothers Hospital. Bradley, a noted public health expert who created the first Masters of Health Administration on the African continent with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and pioneered a model of scale up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, continues to be a strong advocate for education and public health, publishing opinion pieces in Forbes, Bloomberg News, and other national outlets regularly, as well as peer-reviewed research.
Prior to becoming the President of Vassar, Bradley was a faculty member at Yale for more than twenty years, and was most recently the Brady-Johnson Professor of Grand Strategy and Faculty Director of the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute. Bradley’s research has focused on the quality of hospital care and large-scale health system strengthening efforts within the US and abroad including in China, India, Ethiopia, Liberia, Ghana, Rwanda, and the United Kingdom. Bradley has published more nearly 320 peer-reviewed papers and has co-authored three books including The American Healthcare Paradox: Why Spending More Is Getting Us Less. She is the 2018 recipient of the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017. She is also a member of the Council of Foreign Affairs.
Bradley graduated phi beta kappa from Harvard in economics magna cum laude, earned an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in health economics from Yale University.
