Ella J. Weiss

Ella J. Weiss has been involved in education, the arts and community affairs for her entire adult life. Her professional and volunteer achievements share a common thread – a singular and unrelenting devotion to the betterment and enrichment of Brooklyn as a whole.

As President of Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC), Ms. Weiss has expanded programs and brought stability and leadership. She has greatly enhanced BAC’s partnerships with borough, city and state agencies, and has helped develop innovative new professional services for individual artists and art organizations in Brooklyn. Under her leadership, BAC has become a prominent force on the cultural scene.

Ms. Weiss enjoyed a long and illustrious professional career at Brooklyn College. Prior to her appointment in 1995 as Assistant Vice President for College Relations, she was the Executive Director of the Office of Alumni Affairs and the Director of Community Relations and Audience Development for Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College (BCBC). Ms. Weiss secured New York City Council Capital appropriations for Brooklyn College’s 24-hour Library Café and renovation of the Gershwin and Whitman Theaters. Ms. Weiss is particularly proud of her role in strengthening BCBC into today’s thriving cultural center, which reaches out and attracts all of the borough’s diverse communities.

Ms. Weiss holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brooklyn College, and has been recognized by many organizations, receiving Consolidated Edison’s Brooklyn Women of Essence Award, honored as Flatbush Development Corporation’s Silver Anniversary Honoree, the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Salute to Women Honoree, and the YWCA’s Brooklyn Women of Distinction Honoree. She received the Brooklyn College Alumni Association Distinguished Achievement Award, and in 2006, received the President’s Medal from Brooklyn College.

Ella Weiss will forever be an important member of her community, and must be honored accordingly. She has made it her duty to enrich and nurture Brooklyn’s culture through education, the arts and volunteer work, and teaching youth to do the same.