Dr. William Cross Papers

Dr. William Cross (b. 1940) obtained a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Denver in 1963. He worked on, but did not receive, his masters degree in clinical psychology at Roosevelt University. As the Black Power movement gained traction in the 60s and faced opposition into the 70s, Cross worked with Black Panther organizers (like Jimmy Reid) and Black psychologists (like William S. Hall) in order to develop the Immersion-Emmersion model, the Hall-Cross model, and Nigrescence Theory. While working as an assistant to the Chair of African American Studies at Princeton University, he completed his doctoral studies in psychology. In 1973, he became an assistant professor at Cornell University. Over the next 21 years, his work would reflect cultural psychology principles, moving the field away from the social pathology model of racial identity, towards the phenomena of identity transformation. In 1994, he accepted a position at Pennysylvania State, where he assembled a research group to test and validate the Cross-Racial-Identity-Scale. He left in 2000 to join the Social Personality Psychology Program at The City University of New York, where he obtained Emeritus Status. After breifly living in Nevada and working as Counselor in Education at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, he retired. Shortly thereafter, he returned to the University of Denver to become the Coordinator for the Higher Education Program at the Morgridge College of Education. Currently, he is retired but serves as the President Elect of the Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority issues), which focuses on highlighting the experiences of queer People of Color and People with Disabilities within the American Psychological Association.