Kaya Henderson
Kaya Henderson is the co-founder and CEO of Reconstruction, a technology company that offers a K-12 curriculum that highlights the history and contributions of Black people in myriad subjects that include geography, mathematics, and cooking. She is also the co-host of Pod Save the People, a podcast focused on activism, culture, politics, and social justice.
Henderson first began collaborating with NYU Steinhardt in 2017 when Lisette Nieves and Noel Anderson from the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology (ALT) invited her to come and speak to a cohort of the Education Leadership program students. As the chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools from 2010 to 2016, Henderson discussed her role in spearheading a number of improvements.
“Lisette and I are long-time friends, and she invited me to come and do a Q&A at one of the evening classes,” says Henderson. “We did a fireside chat format, and I talked about managing the transformation from being one of the lowest performing to the fastest growing of any urban district on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).”
Henderson also participated in a Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series in 2018 about innovation in teaching and learning; joined the teaching faculty for NYU Steinhardt’s Executive Women’s Leadership Summit in Florence, Italy; and helped design doctoral curriculum.
When the opportunity for this Scholar in Residence position arose, Henderson was pleased to be able to join Steinhardt in a more official capacity.
“For years I have enjoyed helping Steinhardt writ large, and I had engaged in some conversations previously about taking on a more formal role,” says Henderson. “I am honored by the opportunity to continue helping Steinhardt’s educational leadership programs grow.”
“There’s an appetite across a lot of higher education programs to be more global, so I look forward to working on program design that could take more advantage of NYU’s international campuses,” says Henderson. “We’re also looking at more executive education opportunities and cross-sector programs to better reflect our post-pandemic, increasingly interdisciplinary world.”
At Steinhardt, Henderson and her fellow 2022 Scholars in Residence engage with the community in various ways. For example, in the fall, Henderson ran an entrepreneur roundtable with staff of The Program for Inclusion and Neurodiversity Education (PINE) on launching and scaling an online education platform. In January, she gave a guest lecture in Residency to newly admitted students in the EdD in Leadership and Innovation program. This spring, she will participate in the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology's Leadership Lens (L2) event series for a discussion on shifting from being a school teacher to a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur.