Professor of Spanish & Hispanic Studies
    Union College
    Schenectady, NY 12308
    E-mail: henselec@union.edu

    Christine's work on
    Generation X has been
    featured on Ozy.com, ExtraMile, and on  
    The Washington Post's Leadership List 

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Christine Henseler earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism / Advertising, a BA and MA in Spanish Literature and Culture from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from Cornell University. She co-directs 4Humanities, where she leads a campaign called "Humanities, Plain and Simple. She is a blogger for the Huffington Post, and she writes articles and  Op-Eds meant to reach a broader reading audience.

Christine is passionate about reshaping national conversations about the arts and humanities by reaching out, inviting, and learning from colleagues and professionals from all disciplinary backgrounds. She believes that to effect social and cultural change, we need to join forces, bring new voices to the table and work with diverse communities to expand our thinking and acting and create relevant, exciting and accessible points of entry into higher education. In essence, we need to have genuine conversations, learn from one another, and mutually support one another.

To reframe our national dialogues, Christine is editing a book that seeks to shift our thinking about the crisis in the arts and humanities to one that bespeaks of rise and renaissance.  In How Extraordinary Partnerships: How the Arts and Humanities are Transforming America, the personal accounts of cultural community leaders, artists, educators, scholars and business professionals from all fields and disciplines enter into dialogue to showcase how deeply social and responsible transformations are being driven in partnership with the arts and humanities.

In addition, and since most publications in defense of the arts and humanities today are not reaching or speaking to the needs of the next generation of students, Christine is also starting to develop an advice book for and, most importantly, by students and young professionals who want to understand why they should pursue a degree in the arts and humanities. Through their voices, Arts & Humanities: Don' Leave School Without Them  addresses what the next generation needs to know now about where, why and how the arts and humanities can play a foundational and transformative role in their lives and careers.

Christine continues to build The Arts & Humanities in the 21st Century Workplace webpage and to work with current college students to capture new and exciting voices and visions to tell a different story about the arts and humanities. These projects included the NY6 Think Tank, a Mellon-supported initiative that was building a community comprised of educators and students who wished to transform—rethink and rewrite—public conversations on the state of the arts and humanities and included a series of student fellowships. 

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Curriculum Vitae

Generation Now:
​Millennials Call for Social Change

Cover Illustration by Hana Brown, illustrated on her phone Available on Amazon

In the spring of 2018, a group of Union College students took my class called "Millennials and Social Change". They were in for a surprise.

They registered for a course about the rise of the everyday changemaker. It was a class that focused on the current student generation, the Millennials (b. 1980-2000), and the changes they wished to see in their lives and in their communities. 

Ten weeks later, the students in this class had become changemakers themselves. They had risen to the challenge with honesty, passion, and ambition and had written personal stories that inspire and give hope to others. Their collective calls for change became this book. 

These are their fearless stories. ​

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The Arts and Humanities:
​Don't Leave School Without Them
Career advice for and by students and young professionals

Would like to contribute?

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Extraordinary Partnerships:
How the Arts and Humanities are Transforming America

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      HUFFINGTON POST AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

• Want Your Kids to Have a Secure Future? Invest in a Liberal Arts Education (co-authored with Tal Leeds, in Colleges of Distinction)
• "The Rest of Us": The Real Winners and Losers of the Oscars.
• Arts and Humanities: A Tale of Two Crises (Inside Higher Ed)
• Arts & Humanities: Don't Leave School Without Them
• Are the Arts and Humanities Worth Your Investment?: Making the Case for Our Shared Health and Wealth
• The Millennial Perspective: What College Students Say About the Value of the Arts and Humanities
• Chinese Should Recognize True Value of Liberal Arts Education. (CCTV English)
• To Data or Not to Data: Capturing a Humanities in Motion
• Counting (on) Success: Does An Education in the Humanities Count in Today's Day and Age?
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Struck by the Street Art of Stickers. From the Streets to the Classroom (co-authored with Cathy Tedford, St. Lawrence University)
• A High-Def 'Selfie' With the Arts and Humanities (co-authored with Katherine Walker, Hobart and William Smith)
• The Maker Movement and the Humanities: Giving Students a Larger Toolbox (co-authored with John Rieffel, Union College

• A Bubble Generation: The Millennials, Generation X, and Historical Amnesia

• A Surprising Success Story: Jobs and the Arts and Humanities
• The Hybrid Humanities in an Age of Public Scholarship
• Millennials and Boomers: Don't Forget Generation X

• Minecraft Anyone?: Encouraging a New Generation of Computer Scientists and Humanists.
• The Arts & Humanities Are Alive and Well: Just Watch the Millennials
• Generation X: What's In The Label?
• Screen Literacy For The Next Generation: How the Arts & Humanities Matter 

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Faculty Positions

2001- Present    
Union College. Professor (2012-present). Associate Professor (2006-2012). Assistant Professor of Spanish & Hispanic Studies (2001-2006).
1999 - 2001      
SUNY Fredonia. Assistant Professor of Spanish & Women’s Studies.
2005, Summer               
Middlebury College. Visiting Assistant Professor. Summer Language Program.
2004, Fall            
Cornell University. Visiting Assistant Professor.

Leadership Positions
2017-2018
Director of Faculty Development, Union College
2013-2016
Chair, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures. Union College.
2014-2016
Director, NY6Think Tank.
2013-2014
Principal Investigator. Mellon Planning Grant. "Our Shared Humanities." Union College
2012-2015
Chair, Humanities Division at Union College
2009-2013
Chair, Spanish Program
2007-2011
Faculty Mentor to the Posse Foundation, Union College
2006-2009
Director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS)
2005-2007
Associate Director of Academic Programs

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