Hunter College has appointed Professor Jennifer Tuten as a special adviser to the provost on community engagement and public partnerships, President Nancy Cantor and Provost Manoj Pardasani announced.
Tuten is a professor of literacy education at and the former acting dean of Hunter’s School of Education. With more than two decades of experience bridging university scholarship and community practice, she has established herself as a leader committed to equity and collaborative partnerships in urban education.
“Jenny has spent her professional career building relationships in the community and between the college and the community,” Pardasani said. “She brings considerable expertise to this position and will enable us to enhance Hunter College’s position as an anchor institution in New York City.”
The appointment underscores Hunter’s commitment to being a training ground for diverse talents and engine of social mobility in and of the community. Hunter’s faculty and staff work every day on local and global challenges — including climate change and sustainability, gentrification, overincarceration, affordability, intercultural conflict, health equity, forced migration, science skepticism, workers’ rights, civic disengagement, and sustaining democracy.
“I am deeply committed to working towards authentic university-community partnerships that can transcend traditional boundaries to create a lasting impact for all stakeholders and excited about the possibilities ahead,” Tuten said.
As acting dean of the School of Education and former associate provost for faculty affairs, Tuten demonstrated strong leadership across Hunter’s four schools. In her role as associate provost, she oversaw faculty development, tenure, and promotion, and served as the president’s liaison to Hunter’s centers, galleries, and arts programs.
Her scholarship is practitioner-focused, closely aligned with the challenges and opportunities facing teachers as they strive to meet the needs of diverse learners in urban schools, the development of responsive professional development models to improve literacy instruction in urban schools, and family, community, and school engagement.
Tuten’s most significant community impact comes through her direction of READ East Harlem/Hunter College, a $2.3 million professional-development initiative funded by the New York Community Trust’s Brooke Astor Fund for Public Education. The five-year collaborative project united university faculty with K–3 teachers and school leaders across all District 4, East Harlem, elementary schools, creating deep, trusting relationships and became a true collaboration that recognized and leveraged the expertise of university and community settings.
Tuten will be reaching out to the college community to learn about the initiatives of our academic departments and faculty. She will also solicit recommendations on how we can enhance our community engagement efforts across the city.
