Valerie P. Dent is the Deputy Chief Operating Officer for SUNY System where she serves as the liaison to SUNY campuses and oversees campus initiatives, including the SUNY System led response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this position, she served as Chief of Staff to former Chancellor Kristina Johnson.

Prior to joining SUNY, Ms. Dent served as the First Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights, the New York State enforcement agency responsible for investigating and prosecuting claims of discrimination under the New York State Human Rights Law. In her role, she led the agency as the senior administrator and managed a budget of over $14 million, including two federal contracts, and managed staff in 12 regional offices around the State. During her tenure, she brought operational and fiscal stability to the agency and instituted many long-needed reforms.

From the beginning of her career, Ms. Dent has worked in a variety of sectors beginning as a Systems Engineer with IBM and later as an Associate in the Public Finance Department of the law firm Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander and Ferdon. As her interest in the public sector expanded, she served as Assistant General Counsel of the jointly managed Grand Central Partnership, Bryant Park Restoration Corporation and the 34th Street Partnership, three of the largest Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in New York City. She later worked as the Associate Counsel at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), a non-profit economic development organization in Harlem and Washington Heights.

In addition to her work in the public sector, Ms. Dent co-founded the college essay coaching service Write for the Future with her husband, David J. Dent, Sr., Professor of Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU which provides writing support to high school students applying to college.

Ms. Dent is a graduate of Vanderbilt University where she earned a degree in Economics and Columbia University School of Law where she earned a J.D.

Professor Seth N. Asumah is State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor, Founding Chair and Professor of Africana Studies, and Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Cortland. Professor Asumah earned his doctorate in Government and International Relations, and Master of Public Administration degrees from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. His Bachelor of Science in Business Economics, and Bachelor of Arts in Studio Arts are from State University of New York at Oneonta. As Chair of the SUNY Distinguished Academy BIPOC Committee, and a board member of the State University of New York Distinguished Academy, Professor Asumah is author, coauthor, and coeditor of 10 books and over 100 book chapters, articles, and essays, including his award-winning, co-edited (with Mechthild Nagel) anthology, Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusive Excellence (SUNY Press, 2014). His (co-authored) new book, Race, Gender, and Inclusive Leadership: Valuing Diversity, Questioning Risk Management in the Beloved Community is under review by SUNY Press. He is the Founding Director and co-facilitator for SUNY Cortland’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Institute.

Dr. Asumah is President Emeritus and Vice President for Publications for the New York African Studies Association (NYASA). He is a Carnegie-University of Ghana Diaspora Fellow and Diaspora Chair for the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA), member of the African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA), National Council of Black Studies (NCBS), National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS), and the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Professor Asumah is a recipient of over 80 international, national, local awards, and honors, including the Best Faculty Advisor Award, SUNY Cortland, 2021; National Role Model Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (Minority Access INC. 2018); NAACP Freedom Fighters Award (Cortland, #AW29, NY), Student Government Association Outstanding Faculty Award (1998 & 2016); State University of New York at Oneonta Alumni of Distinction Award/Honoree (2016); the Professor Ali A. Mazrui Outstanding Publication and Educational Activities Award-NYASA (2014), The American Political Science Association Outstanding Teaching in Political Science Award (2008), SUNY Cortland Outstanding Achievement in Service Award (2014), New York African Studies Association (NYASA) Outstanding Service Award (2012); The African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) Outstanding Preconference Leadership Award (2018); and the Rozanne Brooks Dedicated and Excellence in Teaching Award (1999).

His honors include: the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the Political Science Honor Society of Pi Sigma Alpha, and the International Honor Society of Phi Beta Delta. He is a Fulbright National Screening Committee Member and a Boren Fellowship National Screening Committee Member. He has been an invited presenter and keynote speaker at over 100 major events and in over 40 different countries in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Caribbean.

Gretchen Sullivan Sorin is Director and Distinguished Service Professor at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, a training program for museum curators, educators, and directors that is part of the State University of New York College at Oneonta. She is also a Fellow of the New York Academy of historians. 

Dr. Sorin holds a B.A. degree from Rutgers University in American Studies, an M.A. in Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program, and a Ph.D. from the University at Albany in American history. Dr. Sorin has more than thirty years of experience in the museum profession working for more than 250 museums as a museum exhibition curator and education, programming, and interpretive planning and strategic planning consultant. She has served as a guest curator for many exhibitions. Major exhibitions include, In the Sprit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service; Through the Eyes of Others:  African Americans and Identity in American Art; the nationally acclaimed traveling exhibition, Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews for the Jewish Museum in New York;  the award-winning Wilderness Cure: Tuberculosis and the Adirondacks for the Adirondack Museum, It All Happened at the Audubon, A History of the Audubon Ballroom for Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Dvorak: Culture and Society in the 19th Century, for the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies and Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Active in the museum community Dr. Sorin has served on the boards or governing councils of organizations including Shelburne Farms, The New York Folklore Society, The American Association for State and Local History, the 1772 Foundation, the New York State Parks Commission, The Directors' Council of the Historic House Trust, The American Association for State and Local History, The Seward House Foundation and the American Association of Museums Committees on Museum Professional Training and Nominations. She is currently the President of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and a member of The New York State Regents Advisory Board. She is a member of the New York State Board For Historic Preservation and the New York State Museum Regents’ Advisory Council.

Dr. Sorin is the recipient of the Katherine Coffey Award from the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, the Thurgood Marshall Unity Award from the Oneonta NAACP, the Philip Jones National Ephemera Society Fellowship Research Award, the State University of New York Chancellor's Research Award, and the Chancellor’s Award for Research and Creative Activities. In 2006 she was named to the rank of Distinguished Service professor. SUNY distinguished ranks are conferred for sustained effort in the application of intellectual skills drawing from the candidate’s scholarly research interests to issues of public concern. In 2018 she was named to the list of distinguished alumni by the State University of New York College at Oneonta. In 2021 she received the Susan Sutton Smith award for academic excellence from SUNY Oneonta. For the past 25 years Sorin has worked to broaden representation in the museum field for underrepresented groups.

Dr. Sorin writes and lectures frequently on museum practice, diversity and inclusion, and African American history. Her books include Touring Historic Harlem, Four Walks in Northern Manhattan with architectural historian Andrew Dolkart, In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art and Case Studies in Cultural Entrepreneurship: How to Create Relevant and Sustainable Institutions. She is the author of Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights published by  

W. W. Norton/Liveright in 2020. The book was a finalist for the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Sorin is also co-writer and senior historian with Steeplechase Films and filmmaker Ric Burns on the documentary film, Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility that aired nationwide on PBS on October, 2020 and February, 2021.