Dear Colleagues,
I’m pleased to introduce Lasana Hotep, UC Berkeley's first-ever Director for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. Under the direction of both Equity & Inclusion and People & Culture, Lasana will be leading campuswide efforts to create a more equitable workplace where every member of our community feels like they belong. Lasana will have a three-person team within People & Culture to help him hit the ground running - he is presenting in a webinar on Wednesday, June 24 entitled "Addressing Anti-Blackness on Campus: Implications for Educators and Institutions."
About LasanaFor over 15 years, Lasana Hotep has worked at large research universities, two-year colleges and as a consultant to educational and corporate entities in addressing issues at the intersection of identity and organizational success. He has the distinguished honor of being co-founder of the African American Men of Arizona State University (AAMASU) program, the founding program coordinator for ASU's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD) and the founding Executive Director of the Equity Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area.
His broad educational leadership experience includes serving as the Director of Multicultural Affairs at Estrella Mountain Community College (Avondale, AZ), Dean of Special Programs and Grants at Merritt College (Oakland, CA), the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Equity for the Peralta Community College District (Oakland, CA) and the inaugural Dean of Student Equity and Support Programs (SESP) at Skyline College (San Bruno, California). As the Dean of SESP at Skyline, he developed and implemented the award-winning Equity Training Series (ETS) professional development experience for faculty, staff and administrators. ETS is a semester-long cohorted professional development experience designed to enhance the cultural fluency of the participants and create a more equity advancing campus climate.Lasana has documented his insights and perspectives in essays published in edited volumes including; African American Men in College (Jossey-Bass, 2006), The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life (Atira/Simon Simon & Schuster, 2008), and is co-author of Minding the Obligation Gap: Striving for Equity in Community Colleges and Beyond (Peter Lang, 2020).
As a lecturer, he has delivered talks throughout the United States and internationally in Beijing, China and Accra, Ghana (West Africa). Lasana most recently served as the founding Executive Director of the Equity Institute at Skyline College in San Bruno, California. In this role, Lasana created and led a team in the development and facilitation Equity Academies that provide team-centered professional development experiences for educational and corporate professionals interested in becoming more culturally fluent and equity-advancing within their organizations. Lasana’s passion is to develop and support student-ready, equity-minded, and transformative educational professionals.
Please join me in welcoming Lasana to UC Berkeley,
Eugene
Eugene Whitlock, Chief People & Culture Officer
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