Artist and Creators series featuring Dr. La Ruth Gray

Artists and Creators is a virtual series featuring professionals from all disciplines: writing, visual arts, and performing arts. A 45-minute presentation is followed by a Q & A session. You may register for this program here

This event will feature Dr. La Ruth Gray. Dr. Gray will talk about libraries and the arts serving as anchors for her growth as she navigated her life through Jim Crow and brutal segregation, focusing on how instructive and liberating arts and libraries were for her. As a child growing up in segregated Texarkana, TX, Dr. LaRuth Gray found the arts to be her “window to the world.” If sitting in the back of the bus restricted her movement, she learned she could go anywhere and everywhere through the arts. This simple understanding propelled her to a lifetime of leadership in the arts, equity and social justice as an educator and public policy innovator. Now she serves as scholar in residence at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. Most importantly, she has had an illustrious career in many important “change agent” positions. These positions include but are not limited to: Superintendent of the Abbot Union Free District, Affiliate Professor at NYU, Deputy Director of the Metro Center and membership on numerous boards that serve education and/or the arts. As former President and a board member of ArtsWestchester for more than 25 years, she has helped the organization plan and implement a vigorous inclusivity agenda.
Dr. Gray dedicates herself to improving the quality of education, the quality of life for children(particularly those of vulnerable populations), and social issues that address equity and opportunity. Retired Deputy Director to Pedro Noguera of NYU”s Steinhardt’s School of Education’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, Gray is also a retired Superintendent of Schools in Westchester County, NY.