Hunter College has turned to a renowned urbanist and longtime professor to serve as the interim director of public policy at its Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute.
Joseph Viteritti, the Thomas Hunter Professor of Public Policy and a ’69 and ’72 alumnus of Hunter College, has assumed the role, Provost Manoj Pardasani and Jonathan F. Fanton Roosevelt House Director Howard Holzer announced.
Viteritti succeeds Basil Smikle Jr., who stepped down to join Columbia University as a professor of practice and director of the MS program in nonprofit management in the School of Professional Studies.
“We are thrilled to have Joe back helming public policy at Roosevelt House,” said Holzer. “Joe has been a valued colleague and counselor through all ten of my years at Roosevelt House, and I’m grateful we will be able to work even more closely in the months to come.”
Viteritti earlier served as and as the founding faculty chair of Roosevelt House’s Public Policy Program. He has a long history with Hunter, joining the faculty in 2003 and serving as the chair of the Urban Policy and Planning Department from 2008 to 2023. The writer or editor of 12 books, he also publishes extensively in social science journals, law reviews, and the press, including The New York Times and Washington Post.
His work has been translated into four foreign languages and covers city politics, education policy, criminal justice, and law. His most recent book on racial politics in our schools will be published later this year by Oxford University Press.
Viteritti has an extensive record of public service, having worked as a senior adviser to the chancellor of the New York City public schools and the school superintendents of Boston and San Francisco. He has been a member or director of blue-ribbon panels that have reviewed and recommended policies for city charter revisions, educational governance, police management, jail reform, municipal secession, civic education, and executive, legislative, and judicial compensation.
Before joining the Hunter faculty, Viteritti taught at Princeton, New York University, Harvard, and the State University of New York at Albany. He was inducted into the Hunter College Alumni Association Hall of Fame in 2001.
The Public Policy Program — which, along with the Human Rights Program, constitutes the academic side of Roosevelt House — counts about 100 undergraduate enrollees pursuing a certificate or minor in public policy each year.
