Venida Rodman Jenkins

Venida C. Rodman Jenkins is the director of the Speicher-Rubin Women’s Center for Equity and Diversity at New Jersey City University (NJCU), where she creates educational initiatives fostering equity and inclusion. During her time at NJCU, Rodman Jenkins founded the Gothic Knight Ally Safe Zone Program and the Afro-Latinx Collective—bringing visibility to traditionally marginalized communities. She began her career as a reporter for The Suburbanite, a weekly newspaper, and then worked as an associate editor at Travel Weekly, a news media platform for the travel industry. She was named to ROI’s Influencers List for People of Color 2019 and has merged her careers in publishing and higher education to facilitate discussions related to race, gender and cultural humility. She is founder and pastor of EMBRACE Church, a member of the Harlem Writers’ Guild, and board member of Leaders of the Free World and Thinking In Full Color. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Syracuse University, and the Master of Divinity degree from New York Theological Seminary.