Systemwide Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Monica Varsanyi, an immigration scholar, joins City & Regional Planning faculty
The Department of City & Regional Planning extends a warm welcome to Professor Monica Varsanyi, who officially joined the UC Berkeley faculty at the beginning of this year. She is currently serving as the University of California systemwide vice provost for faculty affairs and academic programs.
“I am delighted to be part of a department of people from multiple disciplines doing interesting and important work,” said Varsanyi. “The faculty have been very welcoming, and I look forward to engaging as much as possible in the life of the department while serving in the Office of the President.”
Varsanyi is a scholar of migration, membership, and the state. She holds a PhD in geography and BA in geography and international development studies from UCLA, and she earned her MA in geography at the University of Washington. She was previously associate provost for academic affairs and dean of humanities and social sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
“Monica’s longstanding program of research on the role that local governments play in immigration policy — both in enforcement and in providing services to migrants — could not be more timely or important today. She adds a new and vital area of expertise to our programs,” said Stephen J. Collier, chair of the Department of City & Regional Planning.
Passion for mentoring students and faculty
In her role as vice provost, Varsanyi sees herself as a bridge between UC faculty and the administration, providing a faculty perspective on policy matters and representing academic culture in the Office of the President. “I work closely with the Academic Senate and university leaders to oversee UC faculty development initiatives and to help ensure appropriate policies and guidelines are in place to support faculty across the UC system,” she explained.
One of her main roles as vice provost is supporting faculty growth and professional development across the ten campuses. “This position combines my longtime passion for mentoring with my administrative acumen,” she said. “I love helping students and faculty excel.”
Varsanyi has not given up individual mentoring: she is continuing to advise six doctoral students from her previous institution, the CUNY Graduate Center, and is eager to begin working with city and regional planning students at UC Berkeley, even during her tenure as vice provost. “In addition to one-on-one mentoring with my current doctoral students, as systemwide vice provost, I also have the opportunity to have an impact on the success and trajectories of the UC system’s 75,000 academic appointees.”
Varsanyi’s other responsibilities as vice provost include overseeing systemwide academic programs, including UC Press, the California Digital Library, the UC Education Abroad Program, the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, UC Center Sacramento, and the UC Washington Center, as well as other mission-driven projects at the UC level.
“As a proud UCLA alum, I am happy to be serving the University of California,” she said.
Research motivated by questions of belonging and citizenship
In her research, Varsanyi focuses on the expanding role of states, counties, and cities in immigration policymaking and enforcement — termed immigration federalism — and the politics of unauthorized migration in the United States.
“I am motivated by questions of belonging and citizenship,” she said. “What happens to individuals who are full members of their local communities, while simultaneously undocumented under federal law?”
“I became interested in this issue as an undergraduate, when California passed Prop 187,” Varsanyi said. “As a child of immigrants, I wondered why the state was getting involved in immigration policy, which is an issue of federal law.” Approved by the voters in 1994, Proposition 187, which was intended to deny state services to undocumented immigrants, was immediately blocked by the federal courts and was never enacted. However, in the ensuing decades, cities and counties across the country have increasingly inserted themselves into immigration policy and enforcement.
Varsanyi’s current research explores the nativist roots of voter disenfranchisement in the United States, as well as immigration federalism during the Great Depression. Her books include Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States (Stanford University Press, 2010, edited volume) and Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines (with Doris Marie Provine, Scott Decker, and Paul Lewis; University of Chicago Press, 2016).
She is looking forward to collaborating with the many campus centers and intellectual communities that converge on the topics of migration and immigration, including the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative and the Center for the Study of Law and Society. “Coming to UC Berkeley is a migration scholar’s dream,” Varsanyi said.