Guest Profile
Dr. Tanya O Williams Ed.D.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, I have found a second home on the East coast currently residing in New York City and previously in Western Massachusetts. I have over 30 years of diversity, inclusion, and social justice teaching, programming and facilitation experience in higher education including professional roles at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, and most recently, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York as the Deputy Vice President for Institutional Diversity and Community Engagement, which was my last full-time role in higher education. I’ve taught courses such as Social Diversity in Education, Exploring Differences and Common Ground through Intergroup Dialogue, and the Psychology of Racism and facilitated workshops and presentations at the National Conference of Race and Ethnicity (NCORE), the White Privilege Conference (WPC) as well as National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and American College Personnel Administrators (ACPA) conferences. In my seven, full-time years as an equity coach and consultant, I have continued my work with colleges and universities, non-profits, foundations, corporations and K-12 schools both in the United States and abroad including NYU Stern School of Business, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), American College of Greece, The Moth, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Spence School, Harvard University Law School and others.
Additionally, I am a Dare To Lead™ facilitator trained by the BBERG (Brene Brown Education and Research Group) Team and facilitate that curriculum for teams and organizations, as well, as taking individuals through the curriculum in coaching. I serve as a Next Generation faculty member with the Social Justice Training Institute and love getting to co-facilitate those race intensives with mentors and colleagues. I am also Co-lead facilitator for the LeaderShape Institute, a national organization committed to creating leaders with integrity, and as a Senior Trainer with Class Action, a national organization committed to ending classism. I've served as a mentor for the Posse Foundation for Mt. Holyoke College Posse 1 and have served as a Retreat Facilitator for the Posse Plus Retreats (PPR) held at their partner schools. I hold a doctorate (Ed.D) in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and my dissertation, entitled A Process of Becoming: U.S. Born African American and Black Women in a Process of Liberation from Internalized Racism, focused on internalized oppression and liberation. I also hold an MS in Educational Administration and BA in Journalism and English from Texas A&M University.
I love the arts and you can usually catch me any given weekend at a Broadway production or dance performance in the city. I also might be out in the city practicing my love of photography.
