State of Diversity 2020

Dr. Katrice A. Albert is a passionate national thought leader who has masterfully interwoven the areas of inclusive excellence, higher education, intercollegiate athletics, culture, and engagement with a penchant for people-centered talent management and mission-driven visionary leadership.

A champion of access and opportunity, Albert is the founder and managing member of Third Eye Consulting Group, LLC, a diversity consulting firm. In this capacity, she helps educational entities, corporate and nonprofit outfits, governmental agencies, and civic organizations reach their inclusive excellence goals.

With more than 25 years of purpose-propelled experience, she serves as executive vice president of culture, innovation and inclusion at S2A Solutions. In this role she provides transformational business solutions, sustainable equity and inclusion strategies, and culturally-responsive leadership development services steeped in a focus on diverse top talent and the communities they serve.

Albert has a distinguished career in higher education and intercollegiate athletics. Most recently, Albert served as the executive vice president of inclusion and human resources at The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Previously, Albert served as vice president for equity and diversity of the University of Minnesota system, and before that as vice provost for equity, diversity, and community outreach at Louisiana State University (LSU).

She is the co-editor of three volumes —“Reaching the chair: Transformational leadership lessons and impactful success factors of intercollegiate athletics’ leaders” (forthcoming), “Racial Battle Fatigue in Higher Education: Exposing the Myth of Post-Racial America” (2015), and “Trayvon Martin, Race, and American Justice: Writing Wrong” (2014).

Albert completed her doctoral degree in counseling psychology at Auburn University and completed her clinical internship at Boston Medical School’s Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology. She earned her Master of Science in counseling psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi and graduated magna cum laude from the Xavier University of Louisiana with a Bachelor of Science in psychology. Albert is a native of NewRoads, Louisiana, in Pointe CoupèeParish.

Dr. Rona Tamiko Halualani is one of the founders of Halualani & Associates and is a leading presenter and author in the field of intercultural communication and diversity analytics.  She and her brother created Halualani & Associates in 2008 and has served many higher education and private industry clients since then.  Dr. Halualani is a published intercultural communication scholar with two published books and over 30 academic journal articles and chapters in prestigious scholarly outlets.  From 2007 – 2009, Dr. Halualani served as Special  Assistant to the President, Director of Institutional Planning & Inclusive Excellence (Diversity Leader) for San Jose State University and spearheaded the creation, design, implementation, and completion of the university’s (California State University’s) first-ever Diversity Master Plan (which focused on faculty retention and diversification and campus climate improvement) as well as the plan’s first midpoint evaluation. She currently consults for other higher education institutions (two-year colleges, four-year public, and private universities, faith-based colleges and universities) on diversity strategy, diversity mapping, planning, and evaluation.  To date, under Dr. Halualani’s leadership, Halualani & Associates has worked with 50 higher education institutions including Indiana University (7 campuses), Pennsylvania State University (all campuses), University of Alabama, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Minnesota State University Moorhead, College of St. Scholastica, Whitworth University, University of Dayton, California State University Monterey Bay, California State University San Bernardino, and many others.

Dr. Halualani served as the Editor in Chief of the international journal, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication (JIIC) from 2013 - 2016.  Dr. Halualani earned her Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication from the first/oldest doctoral program in Intercultural Communication in the country at Arizona State University (1998).  Dr. Halualani is a Full Professor of Language, Culture, and Intercultural Communication in the Communication Studies Department at San Jose State University. Dr. Halualani possesses extensive expertise in insight analytics and design, with a special emphasis on critical tools (discourse analysis, textual analysis, articulation, critical cultural studies). She has extensive experience in designing diversity strategy and diversity master plans and conducting diversity training for organizations and educational institutions. Dr. Halualani teaches courses on intercultural communication, racial/ethnic identity, cultural studies, diasporic and global movements in relation to culture, and critical intercultural communication studies.  Dr. R. Tamiko Halualani conducts projects on critical intercultural communication studies, cultural identity and misidentifications, intercultural interaction, renaming controversies and historical memories, intercultural communication pedagogy, identity negations and affirmations, diasporic identities, Native Hawaiians, mainland Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

Dr. Daryl G. Smith is Senior Research Fellow and Professor Emerita of Education and Psychology at The Claremont Graduate University. Prior to assuming her current faculty position, Smith served as a college administrator in planning, institutional research, and student affairs. Her research has been in the areas of organizational implications of diversity, assessment and evaluation, leadership, governance, and faculty diversity. Among other published work, she is an author or co-author of Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making it Work, Diversity in Higher Education: Emerging Cross-national Perspectives on Institutional Transformation, Building Institutional Capacity for Diversity and Inclusion in Medical Education, The Challenge of Diversity: Alienation or Involvement in the Academy, Achieving Faculty Diversity: Debunking The Myths, Interrupting The Usual: Successful Strategies for Hiring Diverse Faculty, Organizational Learning as a Tool for Diversity and Institutional Effectiveness.

She has served as an evaluator and consultant to campuses and to foundations such as the James Irvine Foundation, the Haas Jr. Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Smith was part of two U.S. delegations to Ford Foundation-sponsored tri-national conferences (India, South Africa, U.S.) on Diversity, Democracy, and Higher Education. She was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in South Africa in 2010 and 2012.