Dr. Carole Berotte Joseph, an educator and mainstay of the Haitian community was appointed as President of Bronx Community College, becoming the first Haitian born person to lead a campus in the City University of New York system.
Dr. Berotte Joseph, whose career in higher education spans more than 35 years, has been president of Massachusetts Bay Community College, in Wellesley Hills, MA., since 2005. Her appointment as the President of Bronx Community College marks her return to CUNY, where she served as Vice President of Academic Affairs at Hostos Community College in the Bronx after having been a faculty member at City College for over 20 years.
Prior to becoming president of MassBay, she was Chief Academic Officer and Dean of Academic Affairs at Dutchess Community College of The State University of New York. A prominent authority in the field of sociolinguistics, she is the co-editor, with professor Arthur Spears of City College, of the groundbreaking book, “The Haitian Creole Language: History, Structure, Use and Education,” which was published last year.
In a joint statement, Board Chairperson Benno Schmidt and Chancellor Goldstein stated: “Dr. Berotte Joseph is returning to CUNY with extensive experience as a community college president, faculty member, administrator, and higher education advocate. She has a deep commitment to student success and to the University’s mission of access to a high quality education. We are delighted to welcome her back to CUNY and to the Bronx.”
Dr. Berotte Joseph said: “This is a wonderful and very special homecoming for me as I return to my roots in the CUNY system, where I earned my bachelor’s degree and where I served as a faculty member and administrator for many years. It is a great honor to be chosen to lead Bronx Community College, with its outstanding faculty, staff, students, alumni and many community supporters. I look forward to building on the College’s five-decade record of service to the Bronx and New York.”
Dr. Berotte Joseph, whose term will begin in the summer, succeeds Dr. Carolyn G. Williams, who served with great distinction as President of Bronx Community College since 1997.
Bronx Community College was established in 1957 and serves more than 11,000 degree and more than 14,000 adult and continuing education students at its historic University Heights campus.
Nicole Rosefort, director of HABETAC at Brooklyn College called the appointment “fantastic. She credited Berotte Joseph with bringing HABETAC to Brooklyn College and was one of the founding members of the leading organization in the community, Haitian Americans United for Progress.
“Name it in the Haitian community, Carole’s involved and supporting with her work with her money when needed, here and in Haiti,” Rosefort said. ” Carole doesn’t just talk; she’s a doer, she’s efficient, she gets things done! She’ll bring caring, expertise, efficiency, creativity to the job!
So happy to have her back nearby.”
As the president of MassBay Community College since 2005, Dr. Berotte Joseph restructured and reactivated the Foundation Board of Directors, established several Fund Guidelines and prepared the college to launch its first capital campaign. She also created the MassBay Alumni Council, and worked collaboratively with the college’s Student Government Association to establish a Textbook Fund. By revitalizing the college’s planning processes, she facilitated the college’s focus on outcomes. Faculty and staff have expressed pride about the emphasis on excellence, which has led to a steady increase in MassBay’s graduation rates and its recent successful accreditation. Prior to that she was Dean of Academic Affairs at Dutchess Community College/SUNY from 2000 to 2005, where she provided leadership for all academic programs. Her responsibilities included coordinating and evaluating all credit academic programs and developing new academic programs, encouraging the incorporation of technology in the classroom, and facilitating communication among faculty and other campus constituencies.
Dr. Berotte Joseph was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and grew up in New York. She has taught at the Bank Street College, Graduate School of Education; New York University’s School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions; Indiana University’s Creole Institute at Bloomington; and in Haiti as a visiting professor. In 1997, she was selected as a Kellogg Fellow for the prestigious program, “Expanding Leadership Diversity in Community Colleges.” Her community service includes leadership positions with numerous national and regional organizations. She sits on the Board of the American Association of Community Colleges; is a commissioner with the American Council on Education’s Commission on International Initiatives; and is past president of the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs. She is also a member of the board of the New England College Council; and sits on the boards of the Technical Education Research Center; the Wellesley Chamber of Commerce; the Boston Foundation’s Haiti Advisory Council; the Secondary Postsecondary Career/Vocational Technical Education Linkage Consortium; and One Family, Inc. She is also an Overseer at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
Dr. Berotte Joseph has served on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals including the Journal of the International Reading Association, Journal of the New York State Association for Bilingual Education, and the Wadabagei Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. She is a past president of the Haitian Studies Association, an international, scholarly and professional organization that promotes research and scholarship on Haiti and Haitians, and is fluent in four languages: Haitian Creole, French, Spanish and English. Dr. Berotte Joseph has lectured extensively and has authored, translated and edited numerous articles on educational policy issues facing Haitian communities in the U.S. as well as in Haiti. She has served as the Principal Investigator and first director of the statewide Haitian Bilingual/ESL Technical Assistance Center in New York, currently housed at Brooklyn College, and has received several major grants. Most recently, she co-chaired the Higher Education Task Force, which is working to establish a consortium of colleges and universities that will foster partnerships with higher education institutions in Haiti to rebuild the higher education system there.
Dr. Berotte Joseph earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish, with minors in French and education from York College/CUNY; a master’s in education, with specializations in curriculum and teaching, from Fordham University; advanced graduate coursework in administration and supervision at New York University; and a doctorate in sociolinguistics and bilingual education from the Department of Teaching and Learning at New York University. She was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from NYU last year. And her two daughters, Marjorie and Claudine, were featured in the book, “Nurturing Success,” published in 2000.