Selma Berrol taught at Baruch College for twenty-seven years, serving many years as chair of the department and assistant dean of liberal arts, before becoming professor emerita in 1995. A graduate of Hunter College (B.A.), Columbia University (M.A.), and the City University of New York (Ph.D.), Berrol is the author of Immigrants at School: New York, 1898–1914, East Side/East End: Easter European Jews in London and New York, and Growing Up American: Immigrant Children in the United States.