Skip over navigation
Brown shield Brown shield Brown University Dean of the College Brown shield Brown shield Brown University Dean of the College

Besenia Rodriguez

Associate Dean of the College for Research and Upperclass Studies

Besenia Rodriguez earned her A.B. in African American Studies and Education from Brown University and her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in African American and American Studies from Yale University.

While at Yale, Dean Rodriguez developed expertise in 20th century anti-racist and anti-imperialist movements, comparative racial formations, and black Latin American cultural and political history. Her work has been published in Radical History Review, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics and Society, and the anthology Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line. She has taught courses on U.S. cultural history, critical theory, and on globalization, education, and digital culture.

Before coming to Brown, Dean Rodriguez worked as Director of Student Services at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology and as a Mellon Mays program administrator at Queens College-CUNY and at Yale. She also worked for the Human Rights Research Fund and Fundación Amistad, two non-profit organizations based in New Haven and New York, respectively.

Dean Rodriguez's responsibilities include:

  • Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards (UTRAs)
  • Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
  • Transfer Student Issues
  • Working with Concentration Advisors
  • Departmental Undergraduate Groups (DUGs)
  • Independent Concentrations
  • Commencement Speakers
  • Mid-Year Completion Ceremony
  • Senior Degree Completion
  • Senior Theses