Appointment of Professor Decena at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ)

September 22, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Carlos Ulises Decena as the Cross-Campus Director of Undergraduate Intellectual Life at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ). Professor Decena is an interdisciplinary scholar of immigration and queer studies whose research explores the meeting points of black, ethnic, and area studies. He joined the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick in 2005, and went on to serve as Undergraduate Program Director in WGSS and as Chair of the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies. As the recipient of both the 2021 Provost Award for Excellence in Service and the 2018 Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, Professor Decena brings distinction and deep experience to this vital role.

At Rutgers, undergraduates have often led the way for crucial institutional transformation. With Professor Decena's appointment, ISGRJ seeks to amplify the role that students can play in a 21st century public university committed to local and global racial justice. The Institute’s Office of Undergraduate Intellectual Life will work with its campus directors and student leaders in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick to identify programmatic opportunities for increasing cross-campus collaborations among students and their advocates. It will build coalitions in support of initiatives that make Rutgers undergraduates into leaders with important voices in the classroom, in the university curriculum, and in communities across the state of New Jersey on the issues that matter most to achieving social and racial justice.

Please join me and Dr. Michelle Stephens, Executive Director, in welcoming Dr. Decena as the inaugural Cross-Campus Director of Undergraduate Intellectual Life at the ISGRJ. As you do so, please also take a moment to register for the Institute’s inaugural event, a virtual launch at Rutgers–Newark on September 23rd at 5:30pm. It will be the first of a number of programs and projects that the Institute will be launching over the course of this academic year.

Sincerely,

Prabhas V. Moghe, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Distinguished Professor