Virginia Cumberbatch

Director of the Community Engagement Center and Social Justice Institute, UT Austin

Austin

Virginia Cumberbatch 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 and 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. In 2015 she co-founded HUX STORYHOUSE, LLC, with her brother, a creative strategies collective that uses culturally relevant storytelling to help organizations engage thoughtfully and authentically with markets across the Black Diaspora.

Born in 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 curating ongoing cultural and economic contributions of Black Austinites. She is currently serving as Curator for the Austin Shapers (a hub of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers), on the board of KLRU (Austin's Public Broadcasting station) and was vital in re-launching the National Urban League's Young Professionals program Austin. She was appointed to and is currently serving on the Mayor of Austin's Taskforce on Institutional Racism and Systemic Bias.

Virginia received her bachelor degree from Williams College in 2010 in history and sociology with a focus on race studies and her master's degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin in the spring of 2016. She is the recipient of the 2016 Anti-Defamation League of Austin Social Justice Award and the Austin American-Statesman named her "Person to Watch in 2015" for her work in community engagement. Her book, As We Saw It: The Story of Integration at The University of Texas at Austin, will be published in 2018.