BCDI Welcomes Michael Partis as Our New Executive Director!
We are elated to announce that Michael Partis, a Bronx native, and community leader, will be the new and first Executive Director of the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative. Michael is here to help steward our mission of shared wealth, shared power, economic democracy, and Black Liberation in the Bronx.
Amidst a global pandemic at which New York City is the epicenter, welcoming the leadership of Michael Partis is a breath of fresh air.
Michael comes to us with a diverse set of critical experiences to lead BCDI. Michael has led strong local Bronx organizations and managed political campaigns. He worked as a Director of South Bronx Rising Together and was the Research and Policy Director at Young Movement Inc. Partis has taught over 2000 New York City students in the CUNY system. He has also taught courses on neoliberalism and 21st-century capitalism in the LIU Brooklyn Urban Studies graduate program. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in African-American studies and a Master’s in Anthropology.
Michael brings to BCDI over a decade of experience in community-based research, strategy development, and local campaigns. For seven years, he led social enterprise incubation and equitable community development programming at Young Movement Inc. As Director of South Bronx Rising Together, he facilitated a collective impact initiative dedicated to improving health, grade-level reading and math, and post-secondary outcomes in the Melrose, Morrisania, and Crotona Park West neighborhoods. Michael is also an experienced educator and researcher. He’s been an Instructor at CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College, a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at CUNY Brooklyn College, and Assistant Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies at LIU Brooklyn. He is the co-founder of The Bronx Brotherhood Project, a community-based college success program for Black and Latino teens at the New Settlement College Access Center. Since 2008, Partis has been a researcher at the Bronx African American History Project, where he and Professor Mark Naison are editing “After The Fires:” a collection of post-1970s South Bronx oral histories.
Michael will be meeting with our Bronx partner organizations and anchor institutions in the next few weeks to discuss how we can best leverage our work to have a greater impact on the Bronx economy.