MARCH 11, 2022, 1:00 – 2:30 P.M. EDT
Leading in a Time of Uncertainty: When Should the President Invoke DEI?
Using their experiences as leaders committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the panelists will discuss scenarios in which they led, managed, or thought through a controversial high profile campus crisis. They will share the difficulties, pressure, and scrutiny of being a DEI leader in difficult racial and political times. Webinar participants will learn how these leaders contended with their particularly difficult controversies and how they decided to “lead or leave.”
Dr. Carol Henderson will moderate a conversation between Dr. Mildred García, Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, and Marvin Krislov.
Register here.
About the moderator and panelists:
Dr. Carol E. Henderson (PhD) is Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer, and Advisor to the President at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to this appointment, Henderson served as the inaugural Vice Provost for Diversity at the University of Delaware, where, working with senior leaders to formulate diversity and inclusion plans across campus, Henderson developed numerous initiatives that have helped promote a welcoming and inclusive campus climate. This commitment and progress led to UD’s Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award from INSIGHT into Diversity magazine in both 2017 and 2018. Prior to her inaugural role, she also served as associate director/director of undergraduate studies of then Black American Studies (now Africana Studies) and became the first chair of the department.
She is the recipient of several community, professional and research awards, including the 2020 Outstanding Woman of Color Award by the Women of Color Initiative, Atlanta Collaborative in Higher Education. The author/editor of five books, the special issue editor for four journals, she has published numerous essays in critical volumes and journals. Her forthcoming article, “’All Eyez On Me: On Being Black, Female, and a First-Gen Leader in the Academy” will be published Fall 2021 in a special issue on Black women in leadership in Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International. She is currently at work on an article that examines James Baldwin’s influence on writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jesmyn Ward. Henderson received her undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, her Master of Arts in English from California State University, Dominguez Hills, and her doctorate from the University of California, Riverside. She is Professor Emerita of English and Africana Studies at the University of Delaware.
Dr. Mildred García assumed the presidency of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) on January 22, 2018.
As AASCU’s president, Dr. García is an advocate for public higher education at the national level, working to influence federal policy and regulations on behalf of nearly 400 member colleges and universities; serving as a resource to presidents and chancellors as they address state policy and emerging campus issues; developing collaborative partnerships and initiatives that advance public higher education; directing a strategic agenda that focuses on public college and university leadership for the 21st century; and providing professional development opportunities for presidents, chancellors, and their spouses. She is the first Latina to lead one of the six presidentially based higher education associations in Washington, D.C.
Prior to joining AASCU, Dr. García served as the president of two Minority Serving Institutions: California State University (CSU), Fullerton—a nationally ranked university for its full range of academic offerings and research, the largest university in the CSU, and the third‐largest university in the state—and at CSU Dominguez Hills, where she was the first Latina president in the largest system of public higher education in the country.
Under her leadership at CSU Fullerton, the university saw a 30 percent improvement in six‐year graduation rates and a 65 percent improvement in four‐year graduation rates for first‐time freshmen—both university records; the achievement gap was eliminated for transfer students and cut in half for first‐ time freshmen; and annual gift commitments nearly tripled (from $8.5 million to $22 million). In 2016, for the first time in history, U.S. News & World Report heralded the institution as a top “national university.” In addition, during her tenure as president, the institution was ranked number one in California and second in the nation in awarding bachelor’s degrees to Hispanics, as well as sixth in the nation in graduating students of color.
At CSU Dominguez Hills, she eliminated a structural deficit of $2.8 million; increased media placement by 192 percent; received the highest reaccreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges; exceeded enrollment targets not met previously for eight years; increased donor giving by 140 percent; and increased retention rates for first‐time full‐time freshmen by 10 percent.
Before her arrival in the CSU, Dr. García served as the CEO of Berkeley College, where she was the first system‐wide president for all six campuses.
She has held both academic and senior‐level positions at Arizona State University; Montclair State University; Pennsylvania State University; Teachers College, Columbia University; and the Hostos, LaGuardia, and City Colleges of the City University of New York. Dr. García is also a much sought‐after speaker at national and international conferences and has published extensively in academic journals and contributed to multiple books related to student success, leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion.
Her most recent publications are featured in Latinx/a/os in Higher Education: Exploring Identity, Pathways, and Success (NASPA, 2018) and Leading Colleges and Universities (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018).
A recipient of myriad honors and awards—from Hispanic Business Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics in 2007 to The Washingtonian’s Most Influential People in Washington in 2021—Dr. García was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, the U.S. Secretary of Defense to serve on Air University’s Board of Visitors, and the U.S. Secretary of Education to serve on the Committee on Measures of Student Success. She presently sits on the boards of ETS, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), National Survey for Student Engagement (NSSE), and American Academic Leadership Institute (AALI). In addition, she serves as the co‐chair for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Value Commission.
A first‐generation college student, Dr. García earned a Doctor of Education and an M.A. in Higher Education Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University; an M.A. in Business Education/Higher Education from New York University; a B.S. in Business Education from Baruch College, City University of New York; and an A.A.S. from New York City Community College.
Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, Ph.D., is the president of Hollins University. She is a member of the board of directors for the American Association of Colleges and Universities, Interfaith Youth Core, Saint Mary’s School, and The Teagle Foundation. She is currently serving a three-year term as an at-large board member with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and is the chair of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She also chairs the AAC&U Presidents’ Trust and served as a member of the Lumina Foundation’s Quality Credentials Task Force.
Hinton’s scholarship focuses on leadership and inclusion in higher education. She is the author of The Commercial Church: Black Churches and the New Religious Marketplace in America and is a frequent op-ed contributor and author across higher education publications.
Hinton earned a Ph.D. in religion and religious education with high honors from Fordham University, a Master of Arts degree in clinical child psychology from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Williams College. She also holds honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Misericordia University and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Hinton is the recipient of the Bicentennial Medal from Williams College and was recognized with Credo’s eighth annual Courageous Leadership Award. In 2021 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Marvin Krislov became the eighth President of Pace University on August 1, 2017. He is deeply committed to Pace’s mission of Opportunitas—providing all students, regardless of economic background, access to the transformative power of education. He is guiding Pace through its New York City Master Plan to overhaul the downtown campus, and he’s working to bolster Pace’s status as the nation’s leading four-year private college for driving economic mobility. Prior to Krislov’s appointment at Pace, he served for 10 years as the president of Oberlin College, where he led collaborative, consensus-driven efforts to make the college more rigorous, diverse, inclusive, and accessible to students from every socioeconomic background. Prior to Oberlin, he was vice president and general counsel at the University of Michigan, where he led the legal defense of the University’s admission policies that resulted in the 2003 Supreme Court decision recognizing the importance of student body diversity. Krislov earned a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, at Yale University in 1982, and was named a Rhodes Scholar. He earned master’s degrees at Oxford University and Yale, and a juris doctor degree at Yale Law School in 1988. Prior to entering academic life, Krislov served as acting solicitor and then deputy solicitor of national operations in the US Department of Labor. He previously served as associate counsel in the Office of Counsel to the President under President Bill Clinton. President Obama nominated, and the Senate confirmed Krislov to serve as a member of The National Council on the Humanities where he served from November 2009 until the summer of 2019.
