FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2022
Contact: Ralph Newell
Phone: 703.385.2419
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Eboni Zamani-Gallaher to receive the 2022 Diverse Champions Award
FAIRFAX, Va. — Diverse: Issues In Higher Education is pleased to announce that Dr. Eboni Zamani-Gallaher will be the recipient of the 2022 Diverse Champions Award.
Dr. Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher is Professor of Higher Education and Community College Leadership and the director of the Office for Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She previously served as the university’s Associate Head of the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership and Associate Dean of the Graduate College. Currently she serves as the Executive Director of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC).
During her extensive career in higher education, Dr. Zamani-Gallaher has conducted research on marginalized student populations in marginalized institutional contexts. Namely, her work has focused on access, participation, and equitable postsecondary educational trajectories for diverse collegians in two- and four-year institutions. Zamani-Gallaher's scholarship specifically concerns how underrepresented and underserved students navigate open systems of admissions to further education and/or gainful employment. Her studies span policy relevant inquiry on affirmative action in college admissions, postsecondary prison education, ADA compliance, and campus climate for racially minoritized students, students with disabilities, LGBTQIA collegians, and student veterans.
The March 31, 2022 edition of Diverse will include a tribute to Zamani-Gallaher. And the Diverse Champions Award will be presented to her during the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges.
About this Award:
The Diverse Champions Award recognizes community college leaders who have shown an unwavering commitment to equal opportunity and access for all, particularly at the community college level.
The first awardee, in 2012, was Dr. John E. Roueche, director of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Other recipients have been:
- 2013 Dr. Walter Bumphus, executive director, American Association of Community Colleges
- 2014 Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton, president, Cuyahoga Community College
- 2015 Dr. Eduardo Padrón, president, Miami Dade Community College
- 2016 Dr. Terry O’Banion, former CEO & president, League for Innovation
- 2017 Dr. Kay McClenney, former executive director, Center for Community College Student Engagement
- 2018 Dr. Suanne Roueche, former executive director, NISOD
- 2018 Dr. Christine McPhail, founding director, Center for Community College Leadership at Morgan State University
- 2019 Dr. Ken Atwater, president, Hillsborough Community College
- 2020 Dr. Curtis Ivery, chancellor, Wayne County Community College District
- 2021 Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor, California Community Colleges
For almost four decades, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education has been America’s premier source of timely news, provocative commentary, insightful interviews and in-depth special reports on diversity in higher education. Savvy individuals who appreciate the crucial and ever-changing role that higher education plays in the lives of student and professionals, and their families and communities, make reading Diverse a regular habit.
