Longtime Bronx resident Aramina Vega Ferrer, Ph.D., GSE ‘09, was elected by the New York State Legislature to the New York State Board of Regents, representing the 12th judicial district. Ferrer serves on a 17-member board responsible for all educational policy in the state, including The State University of New York and the New York State Education Department. She came out of retirement to serve in this position, alongside the Chancellor of the Board of Regents and fellow GSE graduate Lester W. Young, Jr., Ed.D., GSE ‘78. This June, Ferrer will be recognized by the Fordham Graduate School of Education with its Distinguished Contributions to Education award. The award will be presented to her at the 2022 GSE Alumni Reunion at the Block Party on June 9, 2022.
“On behalf of my colleagues on the Board of Regents, I congratulate Dr. Aramina Vega Ferrer on receiving the Fordham University Distinguished Contributions to Education award,” said Chancellor Young. “Dr. Ferrer has a long and distinguished career as a public school educator and is a recognized leader in developing and implementing programs for culturally and linguistically diverse students. This recognition and her service on the Board of Regents underscore her longstanding and continuing commitment to public education.”
Born in Puerto Rico, Ferrer migrated to the United States with her family when she was two years old, settling in East Harlem. As with many new arrivals at the time, her father had only a second-grade education, and her mother just a fourth-grade education. They took up work in factories, knowing they were going to work hard so their children could get a good education and pursue a better life. Ferrer and her siblings were sent to a Catholic school, which set the course for her daily life: breakfast at home, then church, then school, then back home.
Ferrer and her siblings learned to speak English at school, yet when they returned home, Spanish was their first language and how they communicated with their parents. When she was still a young child, Ferrer’s mother would receive requests from aunts, uncles, and community members for her to act as a translator for doctor appointments at the local hospital, plus meetings with public servants, landlords and others. When she proved gifted as a student, Ferrer was offered a full scholarship to the local Catholic high school.
There, Ferrer began to become aware of the realities and the struggles within her Puerto Rican community. Her early experiences as a young, bilingual New Yorker instilled a deep understanding and appreciation for the cultural and linguistic experiences of students and their families in their homes. This was also the beginning of an awakening within herself, a sense of knowing that she needed to make a contribution and improve the lives of those within her community.
As an undergraduate student at Herbert H. Lehman College, Ferrer majored in Spanish and minored in French. While thinking about a career path where she could make a difference, she student-taught as a Spanish teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx. Ferrer describes this as the moment “when the magic happened for her,” the realization that she wanted to become a teacher and do it the rest of her life. And in fact, it became the start to her incredible career as an educator, affecting so many lives in a positive way through the gift of language and by developing bilingual programs in schools.
Ferrer was a U.S. Department of Education doctoral fellow at Fordham University and earned her doctorate in language, literacy and learning at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education in 2009. Her areas of research and experience include sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and learning, bilingualism, multiculturalism, family literacy, and community-engaged scholarship. Ferrer has become an expert in the development and implementation of innovative instructional programs for culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.
Ferrer’s extensive career in education spans more than 30 years of teaching and leadership experience and community engagement, first as a teacher of Spanish and English as a second language, then eventually as a curriculum specialist as a district supervisor of bilingual education and an elementary school principal. Later, she became an associate professor and chair of the Department of Literacy and Multilingual Studies at Mercy College, and the founding director of the school of education’s Bronx Parent Center.
Additionally, Ferrer actively serves as a trustee of Woodlawn Cemetery and chair of the Woodlawn Conservancy, and as a member of the Board of Advisors of the New York Botanical Garden. She has received numerous professional and civic awards across her storied career, including the Distinguished Educator Award from the New York City Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the Educator of the Year Award for Creative Leadership and Vision in Education from the Association of Teachers of New York, and the Governor’s Outstanding Hispanic Women Achievers Award.
Click here to enjoy her digital story, Found in Translation.
