Virginia Cumberbatch
As a creative, scholar, and organizer, Virginia Cumberbatch’s work sits at the intersection of community advocacy and storytelling. Virginia began serving as Director of the Community Engagement Center (CEC) in the fall of 2016. The CEC is an arm of The University of Texas' Division of Diversity and Community Engagement that incubates the Social Justice Institute, which focuses on connecting the resources of the university to the community to address concerns of equity and access in education, housing, health-care, and social justice. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Virginia is a founding board member of Six Square: Austin's Black Cultural District, an organization focused on preserving Austin's Black history and heritage in East Austin and on curating ongoing cultural and economic contributions of Black Austinites. She is currently a Global Shaper (part of the World Economic Forum), on the board of KLRU (Austin's Public Broadcasting station), the Waller Creek Conservancy, and was vital in re-launching the National Urban League's Young Professionals program in Austin. In 2017, she was appointed to and is currently serving on the Mayor of Austin's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Bias. She is the recipient of the 2016 Anti-Defamation League of Austin Social Justice Award. Her book, As We Saw It: The Story of Integration at The University of Texas at Austin, will be published in 2018.