Cynthia Tobar

Work Title and Work Place

• Associate Professor and Head of Archives, Bronx Community College

Courses Being Taught Presently and/or in the Past

• LBSCI 790.3: Introduction to Oral History Methods and Practice

Academic Statement & Professional Interests

Cynthia Tobar (she/her) is an artist, activist-scholar, filmmaker and oral historian who is passionate about creating interactive, participatory stories documenting social change. A first-generation Ecuadorian American born and raised in NYC, Cynthia has exhibited and published on several community-based oral history projects that have focused on social justice, student activism, and socially engaged art practices. Currently, she is an Associate Professor and Head of Archives at Bronx Community College, where she creates socially-engaged art programming, community-based archiving and storytelling projects that incubate spaces of culturally responsive memory-building to further advance community engagement with the Archives. She is the founder of Cities for People, Not for Profit, a storytelling project documenting gentrification and displacement in Bushwick. Cynthia was awarded two consecutive Brooklyn Arts Grants for ¿Dónde puedo ir? Searching for Home, a collaborative musical project based on oral histories that depict displacement faced by local Latine residents in Bushwick, and American Icons, a collaborative series that creates new, local musical monuments based on oral histories of NYC residents. Proud to have begun her higher education journey at CUNY, Cynthia is a Hunter College alum who holds an MA in Politics from the New School, an MLS from Pratt Institute, and an Ed.D. in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.