Publications
This book centers the voices of BIPOC women faculty, administrators, and student. It outlines effective strategies for university leaders to mitigate gender inequities and includes unique perspectives on overlapping crises faculty deal with in academia.
Leadership Embodied a Foreword for 365 Revolutions: A Yoga Primer for the 21st –Century (March 2022)
“365 Revolutions is a collection of daily liberation poems inspired by yoga poses that can be integrated into yoga practice or as food for reflection and social transformation. Enhanced by beautiful line illustrations that highlight diverse racial, gender and body identities, the book evokes social and historical narratives that assert deep and expansive notions of belonging. Each work packs a wallop, rooted in the sensory elements of posture and the spiritual inferences of the yoga path”. https://www.365revolutions.com/shop/365-revolutions
Taking Flight: A Unlikely Journey with an Uncommon Man (2018)
America was in the midst of the 2016 Presidential Election when two people from different walks of life are immediately connected during a four hour flight. One is a young African-American woman and the other is an older white WWII pilot; both having very different political views. This chance encounter takes place within the context of a contentious election year and in the midst of social discord. This unexpected connection leads her to California. She comes to learn more about him, his perspective, and how he came to believe what he believes. What she discovers is a gentle, compassionate man who is deeply committed to his country and community. Along the way, she discovers things about herself through her journey to learn more about him. This is a narrative about an unlikely journey to finding common ground in the face of civil and political unrest.
Quantum Realities: Educational Truthtelling in an Era of Alternative Facts explores the construct of reality, from multiple perspectives, and proposes how other forms of reality might be worthy of more consideration as we strive to eradicate much of the social, political, economic, and educational disparities that currently plague our nation. My chapter within this book chronicles my lived experience in finding my place and voice in the world while navigating both external and internal expectations.
Teaching about Cultural Competence and Health Disparities in an Online Graduate Public Health Course. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice. Njoku, A. and Baker, U. (2018)
Faculty development programs can be integral in equipping faculty to develop curricula on and teach students about health disparities. With a growth in online learning and in the number of adult learners within the health professions field, it is important to design online curricula to prepare students to engage with diverse populations with varied healthcare needs. The purpose of this paper is to describe faculty efforts to teach and evaluate health disparities-related education in an online graduate course on cultural competence in Public Health practice.
The book chapter chronicles my journey in ontological inquiry that led to me experiencing freedom of expression in my personal and professional life. The chapter highlights a pivotal moment in my doctoral journey that changed the way I viewed myself and my place as a woman of color in the field. Along the way, I discover some of the deeply held assumptions I made about myself, others, and the world. Those assumptions profoundly shaped the way I navigated my professional life. However, having access to those assumptions gave me the opportunity to unpack them and loosen the grip they had on me. This chapter chronicles, in an honest and authentic way, my journey to finding the tools needed to successfully find my voice as a woman of color and how doing so informed my work and enabled me to thrive as a Student Affairs practitioner.
This chapter tackles questions of who we as educational practitioners assume ourselves and our students to be. It calls us to question how our practices of teaching and leadership cultivate and/or stifle learning as it relates to identity development, critical thinking, and social justice. It invites us to explore our own identities as educational practitioners, how those identities are formed, and the ways in which how we define our identities might limit us as an educators. Finally, this chapter asks us to consider pedagogical methodologies that might deconstruct paradigms of thought to promote equity in teaching and learning.