Trina Yearwood ’00
On a spring afternoon in the Brooklyn College Student Center, Trina Yearwood ’00 stood at the back of a crowded room, watching middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students lean forward in their seats at the first‑ever Future Educators Summit—an event devoted to imagining lives, education, mentoring, and youth advocacy. As the room buzzed with questions, Yearwood felt a lump in her throat.
“Those were tears of joy,” she said later. “I think about our young people who are often counted out before they even have an opportunity. It makes me happy that I’m doing something meaningful.”
That sense of meaning has always been her compass. Now, as the newly appointed president of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association (BCAA), Yearwood is bringing that same purpose to an organization charged with sustaining the college community long after graduation.
Yearwood assumes the presidency following the passing of Arlene Lichterman ’53, whose devotion helped shape the association for decades. Having served as first vice president, Yearwood steps into her new role with a deep understanding of the BCAA’s mission and a clear vision for its future.
Her platform is simple and resonant: Brooklyn, Always.
“It echoes the college’s watchwords: All In,” Yearwood explains. “The BCAA also embraces Brooklyn College’s spirit—how all alumni carry its values into their workplaces, their leadership, and how they show up for our communities and our students.”
Where Purpose Took Root
That spirit shaped Yearwood long before she held any titles. Growing up in Brooklyn, she learned early what it meant to advocate. At five years old, she watched police officers pull over her mother’s car and wrongly accuse her of running a stop sign. With guns drawn.
“I’m going to court to tell the judge you’re lying on my mom,” Yearwood announced, before her grandmother silenced her. It became family lore that she might become a lawyer.
High school rewrote that plan. A young Black English teacher changed her life by teaching “to our humanity,” says Yearwood, introducing Black authors, demanding excellence, and making students feel deeply cared for. By the end of the year, Yearwood knew she wanted to teach.
Brooklyn College was not her first choice; her teenage wish was to leave home for a far‑off campus. But teachers—many Brooklyn College alumni—encouraged her to consider its education program. Her mother, also an alumna, added a practical note: staying local meant tuition would be covered.
Even so, the transition was not easy. Early in her college career, one professor dismissed her writing as “gibberish,” shaking her confidence. Everything changed when she found her way to Africana studies.
“Africana studies resuscitated me,” she says. “It gave me back belief in myself.”
In the Classroom, Full Circle
Yearwood graduated with bachelor’s degrees in English and Africana studies, then returned to Samuel J. Tilden High School—her alma mater—as an English teacher, working alongside the mentor who had inspired her.
“Teaching is the most noble and sacred profession,” Yearwood often says. “When students know you care, they rise.”
Her students never forgot the care she showed them. Years later, many returned to tell her so. At one Brooklyn College event she organized, a former student opened the keynote by saying, “Dr. Yearwood, my success is a return on your investment.” Another went on to become a teacher, crediting Yearwood’s belief in her with altering the course of her life.
Answering a Need
Yearwood’s career eventually expanded beyond the classroom into higher education leadership. She earned an M.Ed. from Cambridge College in Boston, an Ed.D. in educational leadership and higher education administration from West Virginia University, and a certificate in diversity and inclusion from Cornell University. She directed the Teacher Opportunity Corps II at Brooklyn College, served as associate dean at Long Island University and interim associate dean at Queens College (CUNY), and has been an adjunct assistant professor at Brooklyn College since 2011.
Along the way, Yearwood noticed a troubling pattern: talented educators leaving the profession. In response, she founded TREAT—Teachers Ready to Educate, Advocate, and Transform—in 2018. What began as a small professional learning community grew to reach more than 12,000 teachers, counselors, administrators, and families. During the pandemic, TREAT became a lifeline, offering mental‑health workshops and honest conversation. In 2024, Yearwood went on to lead TREAT full time.
“Stepping away from academic leadership was scary,” she admits. “But I knew it was time to fully step into the work that I had been building, work that is both meaningful and transformative.”
Leading the Alumni Community Forward
She brings the same resolve to her leadership of the BCAA, with a vision to connect alumni to one another and to the college through mentorship and other strategic programming.
For Yearwood, becoming president of the BCAA is not a culmination—it is a continuation.
“Brooklyn, Always,” she says, “is about who we are and who we commit to being—together.”
