Higher Education

Assistant Professor; Former Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellow (2022-2023) Department: Management and Global Business Bio: Bailey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Global Business at Rutgers Business School. She completed her Ph.D. in International Business at The Ohio State University. She also earned her Bachelor of Science in business and a Master of Business Administration at Florida A&M University. She has worked for fortune 500 companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Procter & Gamble. She has taught multiple International Business, and Entrepreneurship courses. Her research leverages perspectives and theories from International Business, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management to help understand the cross national and cross border behavior of entrepreneurs. Her work has been published in leading academic outlets such as Journal of Business Venturing and Journal of International Business Research. Bailey is married to an architect and is the mother of three school aged children. She enjoys singing, engaging in community service and is currently learning to play the piano.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She has been a tenured faculty member at Harvard since 1993, and she chaired the Department of African and African Americans Studies from 2006-2013. She is the founder and coordinator of that department’s Social Engagement Initiative, an innovative pedagogy that combines rigorous academic work with on-the-ground experience. Higginbotham became the National President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in January 2016. Higginbotham began her teaching career as a public school teacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in Washington, DC. She has also taught on the faculties of Dartmouth College, the University of Maryland, and the University of Pennsylvania. At the special invitation of Duke University, she taught at the Duke Law School in 2010-2011 as the inaugural John Hope Franklin Professor of American Legal History.

Danielle N. Gray-Singh is a tenured Professor of Biological Sciences at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research agenda focuses on post-reproductive changes in hypothalamopituitarygonadal (HPG) hormones that modulate the biochemical, pathological, and cognitive changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases. She has a strong record of developing and overseeing undergraduate enrichment programs to transition students into biomedical sciences doctoral programs. Gray-Singh also has an extensive record of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) leadership at posts ranging from chairperson to dean to Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. Since 2000, Gray-Singh has been involved in submitting 22 proposals, amassing more than $25M from federal funding agencies. GraySingh’s teaching portfolio encompasses neuroscience, human physiology, mathematical modeling and gamification. Given that there is a productive interplay between teaching and research, she endeavors to create an immersive environment that allows for minds-on, hands-on exploration in active environments that are both meaningful and realistic.

Anne Rice is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Lehman College, CUNY. She also teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, where she previously served as Acting Director. Rice helped found Lehman College’s Reentry Initiative, has taught college inside New York state prisons for twelve years, is part of the Leadership Committee of the New York Consortium for Higher Education in Prison, and serves on the board of Proximity for Justice. Rice has coached speakers for TEDx prison events nationwide, and between 2023-24 helped organize TEDx events at Farmington Correctional Center in Missouri and Green Rock Correctional Center in Virginia.

George L. Daniels is an associate professor of journalism and creative media at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He’s a cum laude graduate of Howard University’s Cathy Hughes School of Communications where he graduated with a degree in news editorial journalism. After working for eight years as a local television news producer in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia and then in Cincinnati, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia, he earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees in mass communication from The University of Georgia. Daniels was the 2022 winner of the U.S./U.K. Fulbright Global Challenge Teaching Award for Racial Justice. He’s the co-editor of Teaching Race: Struggles, Strategies and Scholarship for the Mass Communication Classroom. He’s co-authored an edited volume, Covering Communities of Color in Times of Crisis: The Evolving Role and Relevance of Ethnic Media, which will be published in 2025.

Chateé Omísadé Richardson is an educator, an educational psychologist, and a growth facilitator. She has over 20 years of experience in education and psychology researching how people learn, creating engaging content, training educators/psychologists, and teaching K-5th (all subjects), 6-12th grade (English, Drama, and Communications), as well as various courses at the collegiate level. Richardson has dedicated her professional work to optimal development, service to underserved populations (urban educational excellence), metacognitive teaching and learning practices, developmentally appropriate practices, diversity and culturally sustaining practice, and transforming the education system from the ground up; beginning with teacher preparation. She teaches Multicultural Education, African Diaspora and the World, and Psychology of the Inner City Child. She has developed and written culturally infused K-12 curriculum using international educational standards. Richardson received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, her master’s from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and her doctorate degree from Georgia State University.

Steven Keener is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and the Director of the Center for Crime, Equity, and Justice Research and Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. Keener earned his Ph.D. degree in Public Policy and Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he specialized in Criminal Justice Policy. He also earned his M.S. degree in Criminal Justice from Virginia Commonwealth University and his B.A. degree in Political Science from Christopher Newport University. Keener primarily teaches courses on criminology, incarceration, and the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system. His primary research interests include the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system, the ramifications of incarceration with a specific focus on the reentry process, and criminal justice policy. Keener also works with an array of community partners at the local and state level on policy focused research surrounding crime, equity, and justice.

Ardon Shorr [he/him] teaches academic writing and science communication at Princeton. His workshops have appeared across the country at Harvard, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and SXSWedu. He’s a fellow with the National Science Foundation and the winner of the 2023 Rattle prize in poetry. He graduated from Oberlin College studying music theory, neuroscience, and chemistry. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from Carnegie Mellon.

Alice Randall teaches courses on soul food, African-American children's literature, African-American film, and creative writing. She is the author of four published novels and has produced screenplays, the groundbreaking Ada's App, and is an award-winning songwriter. Her most recent work focuses on investigating ways that the arts can be used to battle health disparity in the United States and around the globe.

Megan LePere-Schloop researches and teaches public and nonprofit management. She received her Ph.D. and MPA from the University of Georgia’s Department of Public Administration and Policy and her undergraduate degree in History from Oberlin College. Megan’s research contributes to the fields of public affairs and organization studies, using both computational and qualitative methods. Her solo and team research on nonprofit organizational fields explores how United Ways and community foundations respond to environmental challenges including demographic shifts, evolving fundraising and managerial norms, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She won the 2018 Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management Public and Nonprofit Division for her research examining the effect of national institutional context and local competition on organizational change across the United Way system. Megan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on managing and leading public and nonprofit organizations, incorporating insights from her professional management experience, emphasizing active learning and the practical application of theory.

Deborah Elizabeth Whaley is an artist, curator, writer, poet, vegan blogger, and Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research and teaching fields include American literature, history, and culture, the institutional history, theories, and methods of American and cultural studies, 18th century to contemporary cultural history, women and gender studies, comparative ethnic studies, Black cultural studies, the digital humanities, the medical humanities, popular culture, and the visual arts. She is the author of Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime (2015); Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities (2010); co-editor of Keywords in Comics Studies (2021); and co-editor of the Black cultural studies journal Addressing the Crisis. Whaley received degrees in American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (BA), California State University, Fullerton (MA), and the University of Kansas (PhD with Honors).

Anna F. Kaplan, PhD, is a scholar and oral historian in Washington, DC. She teaches 20th Century US history and public history at American University. Her focus is on memory and the creation and use of public narratives about race. In addition to her manuscript examining uses of stories about the University of Mississippi’s desegregation in 1962, she is researching the erased history of Black women’s contributions to early institutional oral history programs. She has worked on projects for federal agencies, museums, and local communities in Washington, DC. She also serves as the Vice President of the Board for Oral History in the MidAtlantic Region and a co-chair of the Oral History Association’s Diversity Committee and Equity Audit Task Force. She has published an article in the journal Oral History Review and organized public workshops furthering conversations about accessibility and support in oral history and public history practices.

Jana Duckett, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of strategic communication at Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication with experience in public relations, digital communication, and social media marketing. She teaches courses in innovative thinking for strategic communication in political communication, social media, digital media, media literacy and vlogging. She is passionate about mentoring students and inspiring their drive for research, curiosity, inventiveness, and an overall excitement for using data to solve complex creative problems while also emphasizing the importance of maintaining a tech-life balance. Professor Duckett has been with Morgan State University since 2019. Her research interests include polymedia theory, social network theory, big data analysis, cloud protest, and media effects. Professor Duckett received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Media Studies from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She received her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Regent University.

Doctor Shively T. J. Smith, New Testament Professor at Boston University School of Theology, has spent over 20 years as a scholar-teacher and speaker dedicated to academic theological studies and ecumenical conversations in the public square. Her scholarship focuses on early Christian letters, Howard Washington Thurman, and nineteenthcentury African American women’s literature. A summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Fisk University, she holds two Masters’ degrees and a PhD in New Testament studies from Emory University. Smith has authored two books, Strangers to Family: Diaspora and 1 Peter’s Invention of God’s Household; and Interpreting 2 Peter through African American Women’s Moral Writings; and written numerous essays, including: “Thurman-eutics: Howard Thurman’s Clothesline for the Interpretation of the Life of the Mind and Journey of the Spirit.” Having received several national awards, Smith has appeared on the History Channel Documentary, “Jesus, His Life” and presented at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Ngozi Ndulue is in her second year of teaching a Capital Punishment Law Seminar at the Howard University School of Law as an adjunct instructor. After graduating from Yale Law School, she clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Ngozi’s career has focused on the intersection of racial justice and the criminal legal system. She has served as an assistant federal public defender, an attorney at the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, and the criminal justice director at the national NAACP. Ngozi currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) in Washington, DC. At the Death Penalty Information Center, Ngozi focuses on deepening the public’s understanding of the origins, functioning, and impact of the death penalty. She is the lead author of the September 2020 report, Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.

Liseli Fitzpatrick, Ph.D. is a Trinidadian poet and professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her life’s work and pedagogy are grounded in the universality of African cosmologies, sacred ontologies, culture, and cultural expressions. Fitzpatrick teaches what she lives and lives what she teaches. Through her embodied and experiential teachings, Fitzpatrick engenders empowering and emancipatory education by presenting a communal, cosmopolitan, and non-hegemonic way of life, living, and being in the co-creation of an equitable, just, breathable, and compassionate world. She embodies and explores themes of love, sacred ritual, home, belonging, movements, embodiment, wholeness, resilience, Africanisms, community, healing, liberation, and joy. In 2018, Fitzpatrick made history as the first Ph.D. in African American and African Studies (AAAS) at The Ohio State University (OSU). In 2012, Fitzpatrick earned her M.A. in AAAS, and in 2010, she received a B.A. in Psychology (pre-Law) with a double-minor degree in AAAS and Visual Communications from The Ohio State University (OSU). Fitzpatrick values her place in the classroom and emphasizes the importance of teaching to enlighten, enliven, encourage, enhance, enrich, and empower.

Greg Carr is Associate Professor and former chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Howard School of Law. He is First Vice President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and Editor of The Compass: The Journal of ASCAC. He also led the team that designed the curriculum framework for the School District of Philadelphia’s mandatory high school African American History course and, during his time as the District’s Program Specialist on Race and Culture, cofounded Philadelphia Freedom Schools. He holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University and a JD from the Ohio State University College of Law. His publications have appeared in, among other places, The African American Studies Reader, Socialism and Democracy, Africana Studies, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America,The National Urban League’s 2012 State of Black America and Malcolm X: A Historical Reader.

Michael Gerard Mason is a Special Advisor on Wellbeing to the Executive Director of Student Health and Senior Associate Vice President of Student Affairs. For nearly 20 years, he has worked at the intersections of health and wellness, student affairs, multicultural counseling, and education (teaching and learning). Mason has held administrative, clinical, and faculty appointments at the University of Virginia since 2008. Mason earned a BS in Biology from Dillard University, an M.Ed. in Community and School Counseling from the University of New Orleans, an ALM in Management from Harvard University Extension School, and a Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision from the University of Virginia. His current research interests center on a) intercultural empathy in student peer support, b) joy as a necessary learning component, and c) healthy intellectual exploration as central to higher education’s efforts to address seismic shifts in student mental health and wellbeing.

Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Ph. D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University (SUNY). His articles have appeared in the Trotter Review, the Historical Journal of Massachusetts, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights and the Journal of Urban History. He is an Executive Board member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). He is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog Black Perspectives, hosted by the African American Intellectual Historical Society (AAIHS). He has written op-eds for Diverse Issues in Higher Education and is a columnist for the BK Reader. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Miletsky has completed a manuscript on the Black freedom movement in Boston under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. Miletsky was the recipient of a 2020 “Game Changer” Award by the Long Island Area NAACP branches. He will be using the HistoryMakers Digital Archive in his courses on “Recent African American History” and “Themes in the Black Experience”. He lives in Brooklyn.