Aziza Braithwaite Bey

Dr. Aziza Braithwaite Bey earned her Ph.D from Union Institute & University in Multicultural Education & Visual Culture, an MA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Museum Studies, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in Merchandise Management. While studying Haute Couture in Paris, France, she also worked as a performing/recording artist. For most of her professional life, Aziza has been a teacher, fashion and costume designer, combining her love for teaching with her professional work on films, theatre, and designing under her own label for specialty stores and private clientele. As a multicultural education consultant, Aziza has worked with teachers, public school students, and graduate students throughout the United States. She is passionate about empowering teachers and young people Pre-K-12 about culture and history through the arts, whereby diversity and peace can be celebrated and shared. Aziza was head of the Fashion Design Department at the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka, Zambia, and the College of St. Elizabeth, and has taught at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. In the Create Arts in Learning Division, Aziza teaches Art and Culture in Community, Cultural History through Storytelling, An Arts Approach to Multicultural Education, Interdisciplinary Arts, History & Social Studies, Critical Pedagogy & the Arts, and Social Action: Critical Pedagogy in the off-campus CAGS program.

Aziza designed and created the Great Women Leaders Doll Collection. She has compiled exhaustive, cutting-edge research on the Kemetians of Ancient Egypt, the Dogon of Mali, the Maya of Mexico, and the Tsalagi (Cherokee) of the Southeast United States into a compelling cross-cultural study for teachers of students Pre-K through 12th grade in her book, Culture and Nurturance: The Aesthetic Life of School Children, Pre-K-12th Grade Teacher's Resource Manual.