After two years at the helm, St. Joe’s inaugural associate provost for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), is leaving the university for another opportunity.
Nicole Stokes, Ph.D., will become dean/division head of the School of Social Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University, Abington campus, according to an April 4 announcement from Cheryl McConnell, Ph.D., provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Stokes declined to be interviewed for this story. While the university conducts a search for a new associate provost of diversity, equity and inclusion, Janée Burkhalter, Ph.D., associate dean of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business and professor of marketing, and Kim Allen-Stuck, Ph.D., assistant vice president of student success and educational support, will serve as co-interim assistants to the provost, according to a follow-up announcement from McConnell on April 29.
Burkhalter and Allen-Stuck will also help search for, identify and select a new associate provost over the summer, the announcement stated.
“The first [goal] is running a successful search,” Allen-Stuck said. “We’re hoping to kick that off in June and hopefully have a new assistant provost as soon as possible. The second [goal] is, as the merger is going through, making sure that areas of DEI are incorporated into the merger planning and the merger implementation.”
McConnell said in the email that if the search continues into the next academic year, Burkhalter and Allen-Stuck will continue with interim leadership.
St. Joe’s opened its Center for Diversity and Inclusion in 2016. In that same year, Monica Nixon, Ed.D., was appointed St. Joe’s chief diversity and inclusion officer. Nixon left the university in 2018, and her position remained vacant for two years until Stokes was hired.
Stokes’ last day at St. Joe’s is May 25. On June 1, St. Joe’s will formally merge with USciences, where DEI efforts are led by the DEI Council, made up of administrators, faculty and a student.
Dr. Paul Katz, former USciences president, started the council in July 2020, according to David Forde Jr., Esq., vice president of community and government affairs. Current members include Forde; Massandje Dosso ’22, president of the Black Student Union; Dr. Tyan Thomas, PharmD, associate professor of clinical pharmacy; Tricia Purcell, director of student activities and campus recreation; and Ruth Roberts, Ph.D., director of human resources.
“We focus on three bucket areas, community, meaning our external community, academics in student life and then also workforce,” Forde said. “We should also add that it’s not just done by those five people. Each of those working groups we put out a call for folks to serve on these committees, on these subcommittees.”
Forde said USciences formed its DEI council to build a community and to get as many people involved as possible.
“It’s just important to have a place that people know that they can go to and be heard,” Forde said.
According to the National Center of Education Statistics, fall 2020 undergraduate enrollment at St. Joe’s was 6% Black or African American, 8% Hispanic/Latino, 3% Asian, 2% unknown ethnicity, 3% multiracial and 76% white/caucasian.
Fall 2020 undergraduate enrollment at USciences was 7% Black or African American, 4% Hispanic/Latino, 32% Asian, 8% unknown ethnicity, 5% multiracial and 43% white/caucasian.
Nixon, who is now vice president for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), an organization dedicated to professionals in student affairs in higher education, said having a leadership role dedicated to DEI is necessary for higher education institutions to stay apt to the progressing world.
“Having a position like a chief diversity and inclusion officer helps colleges and universities align functions across the institution and monitor progress in more cohesive ways,” Nixon said. “This person really serves in a connective function to align initiatives, and also to bring innovative ideas to their colleagues in order to help an institution and keep abreast of current trends”
Currently, there is little diversity in leadership at St. Joe’s.
In her April 29 announcement, McConnell stated that Angela McDonald, Ph.D., dean of the School of Health Studies and Education, was leaving the university to assume the position of dean of the School of Education, Health and Human Services at Longwood University in Virginia. McDonald has been at St. Joe’s since July 2019.
The announcement also stated that Joshua Power, Ed.D., executive director of graduate and extended studies, will serve as dean of Health Studies and Education for a one-year term.
With Power’s appointment, all deans at St. Joe’s will be white men, including Joseph DiAngelo, Jr., Ed.D. ’70, dean of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business, and Jay Carter, Ph.D., who has been serving as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since June 2021. In a separate April 29 email sent to St. Joe’s faculty and staff, the university announced Carter had been appointed for a four-year term, effective June 1.
Sinclair Smith, Sc.D., who will be the dean of the new School of Health Professions, and Edward Foote, PharmD., who will serve as dean of the pharmacy program, are also white men.
Nixon said higher education in the U.S. as a whole is an organizational structure that was built on preexisting inequitable structures, and progress happens when structures are questioned and analyzed.
“If we dismantled those structures and built different ones, then everyone would have a more equitable experience,” Nixon said. “And I think that’s really the call to build justice and equity into the system. I think the real work for higher education is to question some of the assumptions and the foundations of our systems and services and offices and structures. And then to think really creatively about building new ones.”
Taylor Stokes ’22, outgoing president of St. Joe’s University Student Senate (USS), said St. Joe’s has to do better to increase diversity
“[Students] are not going to feel like their voices are heard or represented, and it’s going to discourage them from wanting to perform to the best of their abilities because they’re not going to see someone who looks like them in an authoritative role,” Stokes said.
