academic leadership positions

First day of the Global Poverty class, Wheeler Auditorium, August 2009.

In addition to her teaching commitments, Roy also holds various academic leadership positions and has been involved in the establishment of several academic programs. From 2005 to 2009, she served as Associate Dean of International and Area Studies overseeing 6 undergraduate and 3 graduate degree-granting programs.  She currently holds the following positions:

Education Director, Blum Center for Developing Economies
As the founding Education Director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, Roy helped establish and currently chairs the undergraduate minor in Global Poverty and Practice.  Involving hundreds of students from over 30 majors, this minor provides the theoretical frameworks, methods and skills, and creative opportunities necessary for students to participate in forms of practice that engage global poverty in imaginative and practical ways. For more about the minor, see http://blumcenter.berkeley.edu/global-poverty-education

Chair, Urban Studies Major
Roy currently chairs the undergraduate major in Urban Studies, which is housed in the Department of City and Regional Planning.  Roy helped establish this major in 2001-2002.  An interdisciplinary program, the major trains students in the historical and contemporary analysis of American and global urbanization and urbanism and allows them to imagine ways of creating more humane and equitable urban futures.  For more about the major, see http://dcrp.ced.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate

Co-Director, Global Metropolitan Studies
Along with Richard Walker, Roy directs the Global Metropolitan Studies initiative, a multidisciplinary endeavor that supports research and houses graduate and undergraduate curricula. It is one of a handful of “strategic” initiatives selected by the UC Berkeley campus to mark a new generation of scholarship and to consolidate an emerging academic field.  GMS has recently launched a “Designated Emphasis” for doctoral students.  For more about GMS, see http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/