Faculty

Profile

Nadia Williams is full-time faculty and Associate Dean of the School of Art, Media and Technology.  Nadia’s 15+ years working in education have been a great source of her joy.  As Director of the Parsons Scholars Program for nine years, Nadia cultivated a space where NYC high school students explore art and design within a curriculum that centers people of color from low income backgrounds.  She has collaborated on a range of university-wide initiatives of access, equity and social justice, and is continually impressed by the continuum of students who hold The New School accountable to social justice values.   Within all of her equity and access work, Nadia applies a bi-directional approach:  in addition to creating opportunities for people from historically marginalized communities to thrive, there must be an equal effort to dismantle the structural and historical barriers and the historic white supremacist culture of oppression within these institutions and fields.

Nadia is a graduate of Parsons BFA Fashion Design who began her career designing in corporate environments.  Shortly after, she shifted her design practice, while living in Mexico, where she collaboratively developed design strategies and organizational structures that center indigenous, matriarchal knowledge.  Nadia has shared her work through national platforms such as Race Forward’s Facing Race conference in Detroit, the Reconstructing Practice conference on antiracist curriculum at Art Center College of Design in California, and at NCORE (the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education) in Texas.  She is an alumna of the CCCADI (Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute) Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship and co-founder of the Radical Mama Educator inquiry-to-action group through NYCoRE (NY Collective of Radical Educators).   Nadia considers her roles as educator, arts administrator, artist, and mother to be commitments to sustaining the brilliant legacies of historically marginalized communities.  Currently, her creative practice is grounded in family history research, exploring her roots in México, Panamá and Jamaica. 

Awards And Honors

University Distinguished Teaching Award, 2021

Woman of the Week, for outstanding professional and civic accomplishments at TNS, 2016

University Social Justice Service Award, 2015

Outstanding Advisor to a Student Group, 2014