Inclusive Excellence Scholar Residency
Inclusive Excellence Scholar Residency 2018
Guest Resident Scholar: Dr. Dena Samuels
September 17 – 18, 2018
Dena Samuels, PhD serves as a mindfulness-based diversity, equity, and inclusion author, speaker, leadership trainer, and consultant. An award-winning tenured professor, she taught at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs in the Women’s & Ethnic Studies program for 20 years while consulting around the U.S. and beyond. Her passion is to inspire people to raise their personal and social awareness to live more fulfilling, connected, and meaningful lives; and to assist organizations, campuses, and corporations in building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultures. Samuels’ latest book, The Mindfulness Effect: an unexpected path to healing, connection, & social justice (Night River Press, 2018) offers 25 mindfulness practices and activities for health/wellness, self-empowerment, culturally inclusive leadership, social and environmental justice. To accompany this book, she offers The Mindfulness Effect Journal & Practice Planner, which serves as a workbook for reflecting on the practices in the book, and for creating a personalized plan to incorporate mindfulness into readers’ lives. Her previous book, The Culturally Inclusive Educator: Preparing for a Multicultural World (Teachers College Press, 2014) provides transformative inquiry and specific strategies for building cultural inclusion both personally and institutionally. Over her extensive career, Dr. Samuels has been interviewed in print, radio, online, and on TV, including by the Colorado affiliate station of NPR; and by the Huffington Post. She is also a featured speaker in Thomas Keith’s upcoming documentary, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? (2019). Samuels volunteers as co-facilitator of the monthly Second Tuesday Race Forum of Denver, and also as co-chair of The Privilege Institute, the institutional home of the annual White Privilege Conference. In Denver, Samuels serves as a culturally inclusive, trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness instructor.
Inclusive Excellence Scholar Residency 2017
Guest Resident Scholar: Dr. Damon A. Williams
September 18 – 19, 2017
The purpose of the Inclusive Excellence Residency (IER) is to assist University of Dayton of community achieve a more robust integrated approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion that,
- builds on existing efforts across campus;
- operates in a strategic, evidenced-based and data-driven manner; and
- underscores the importance of comprehensive outcomes assessments and strong accountability measures.
The overarching theme of each IER will lay a thematic foundation that will shape and inform professional development and education opportunities for faculty, staff, and administrators for the academic year. These efforts will be driven by and responsive to the following emerging vision and principles:
Emerging Vision
Driven by our Catholic and Marianist traditions, the University of Dayton will be internationally renowned for its resolute commitment to social justice, high degree of cultural intelligence, intercultural competency, its awareness of different identities and their significance to higher education.
Emerging Principles
- Redefine issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental to advancing the University of Dayton’s understanding of excellence and advancing its Catholic and Marianist mission.
- Focus on creating systems that enable all students, faculty, staff, and administration to thrive and achieve their maximum potential.
- Achieve a more robust and integrated diversity and inclusion approach that builds on prior efforts and operates in a strategic, evidence-based, and data-driven manner in which accountability is of paramount importance.
- Focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion-related efforts that innovate and transform the institutional culture, rather than merely make tactical moves that lead to poorly integrated efforts and symbolic implementation.
- Lead with a high degree of cultural intelligence and awareness of different identities and their significance in higher education.
Adapted from Insight Into Diversity’s Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award Criteria:
“The Strategic Diversity Leadership Approach”, 2017.
