Nancy Cantor

Nancy Cantor is president of Hunter College of the City University of New York. She is recognized nationally and internationally for emphasizing the role of universities as anchor institutions in their communities, especially by forging diverse, cross-sector collaboratives and leveraging publicly engaged scholarship to advance racial equity and equitable growth. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Medicine, she previously led Rutgers University – Newark, Syracuse University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and was provost at the University of Michigan, where she was closely involved in the defense of affirmative action in 2003 Supreme Court cases Grutter and Gratz.

A social psychologist, Cantor is recognized for her scholarly contributions to the understanding of how individuals perceive and think about their social worlds, pursue personal goals, and how they regulate their behavior to adapt to life's most challenging social environments. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies. She is a board member of AIR, co-chairs the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration Steering Committee and the Anchor Institutions Task Force Advisory Council, and co-edits the book series Our Compelling Interests from Princeton University Press with Earl Lewis. She has received the Robert Zemsky Medal for Innovation in Higher Education; American Council on Education Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award; Frank W. Hale, Jr. Diversity Leadership Award from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education; Anti-Defamation League Woman of Achievement Award; National Council for Research on Women Making a Difference for Women Award; and 2008 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award, one of higher education’s highest honors.