Valentine Rossilli Winsey

Valentine Rossilli Winsey, born Valentina Diane Rossilli (1923-2007) was an American speech and drama teacher, historian of immigration, anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist and women's rights activist. After completing a thesis on Italian American migration to New York City, she became a student of Buckminster Fuller, developing his idea of a 'World Game'. She taught anthropology at Pace College. Refused tenure at Pace, she brought a lawsuit against the university for sex discrimination. She later published a genealogical guide, and research on a variety of sociological and psychological topics, including touch and relations with pets.

Life Valentina Diane Rossilli was born on May 20, 1923, in New York City. The daughter of Anthony Rossili, she grew up in Newark, New Jersey. She graduated BA from Montclair State Teachers College in 1943 and MA from the University of Denver in 1945. In 1948 she wrote a radio drama, Good morning to you, for kindergarten children in Newark, and worked with WBGO Radio. She was employed at Seton Hall University in the 1950s, where she was an assistant professor of speech, and disputed her salary there in 1952-3. She married Aubrey Winsey, a copywriter who went on to work at the public relations department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Winsey gained her PhD from New York University in 1966. Her thesis examined the changing attitudes of Southern Italian immigrant communities in New York City in the decades around 1900, drawing on the 'race relations cycle' theory of Robert E. Park. That year she joined the anthropology department at Pace College (later Pace University).

In 1969 she studied with Buckminster Fuller, and in 1970-71 created the first undergraduate course on Fuller's World Game. In the 1970s she also wrote a nationally syndicated advice column, 'Dear Val'. Winsey was belatedly created a professor of anthropology at Pace in 1998. The R. Buckminster Fuller Papers at Stanford University also contain some correspondence with her, and material relating to Winsey's World Games activity.

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