By Sharron Hannon
shannon@uga.edu
Five candidates for a new senior administrative post created to foster institutional diversity at the  University of Georgia will meet over the next several weeks with administrators, faculty, staff and students and participate in open forums on campus.
A search committee chaired by Vice President for Instruction Tom Dyer selected the five finalists for the position of associate provost for institutional diversity following a national search. “This is an especially talented group of candidates, and I look forward to having the campus community meet them,” Dyer says.
The candidates are:
• Ileana Arias, a UGA professor of clinical psychology who is currently working for the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
• Carol Aisha Blackshire-Belay, professor and chairperson of the department of African and
African-American studies at Indiana State University.
• Marvel Lang, professor of urban affairs programs at Michigan State University.
• Robert A. Pratt, associate professor of history at UGA.
• Aaron Thompson, executive director of the Student Success Institute at Eastern Kentucky University.
The new post will be responsible for developing a comprehensive program to promote equity and diversity across the university and will report directly to Karen A. Holbrook, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.
Arias, who was born in Cuba, came to UGA in 1985 as an assistant professor of clinical psychology. She is a member of the graduate faculty and the Honors faculty, and served as director of the Psychology Clinic from 1992 to 1995. She was a 1996 recipient of the Meigs Award for Excellence in Teaching—UGA’s highest teaching honor—and received a Creative Research Medal from the UGA Research Foundation in 1997 for her studies of family violence. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Blackshire-Belay has been at Indiana State University since 1996. She previously was an associate professor in the department of African-American studies at Temple University. Her areas of specialization include German, African-American languages and the languages of Africa. She has taught and been a visiting research scholar at several institutions in Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Germanic linguistics from Princeton.
Lang has been with urban affairs programs at Michigan State since 1986. Prior to that he spent two years on special assignment with the Bureau of the Census in Washington, D.C. His research interests include urban growth and urban development theory, historic settlement processes, and minorities in higher education. In addition to his academic position, he is founder and president of Executive Leadership Development Services, Inc. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Jackson State University, a master’s from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate from Michigan State University.
Pratt joined the history department at UGA in 1987. While earning his Ph.D., he was an instructor of Afro-American studies at the University of Virginia. With expertise in African-American history, 20th-century U.S. history and the civil rights movement, he is currently finishing a book on the desegregation of the University of Georgia. An earlier book, The Color of their Skin, examined education and race issues in Richmond, Va. Pratt’s undergraduate degree is from Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
Thompson was named the first executive director of the new Student Success Institute at Eastern Kentucky in July 2000. Prior to that he was coordinator of academic success and retention and an associate professor in EKU’s department of anthropology, sociology and social work. The institute he heads coordinates existing programs and new initiatives related to student success and retention. He holds a bachelor’s degree from EKU and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Kentucky. |
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