To further efforts related the Action Plan to Combat Racism, the Center for Faculty Development has appointed two faculty members to serve as Faculty Fellows for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the 2019-20 academic year. Nakeisha Lewis and Bryana French will develop programming related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) during the coming year and work with departments and groups to strengthen work in this area.
Lewis is an associate professor and chair of the marketing department. She joined St. Thomas in 2009 and has worked on various DEI efforts both inside and outside of St. Thomas. Her research meets at the intersection of marketplace diversity, popular culture and marketing communications. She completed the Faculty Leadership Fellows Program during the 2018-19 academic year and currently serves as the Vice President of the Marketing Ethics Faculty Association. As a Faculty DEI Fellow, she hopes to develop strategy and implement programs that will support her faculty colleagues to make our university a more inclusive and diverse place.
French is an associate professor of counseling psychology. She joined St. Thomas in 2014 to help enhance multicultural training in graduate psychology. Her research focuses on radical healing for people of color and indigenous people, teaching about race, and sexual coercion among racially diverse young adults, and she’s interested in multicultural pedagogy. She serves as a multicultural consultant for Counseling and Psychological Services and holds leadership roles in the American Psychological Association, including a Council of Representatives for Division 17, the Society of Counseling Psychology. Through the faculty fellowship she hopes to help academic units develop their own DEI initiatives.
