Dr. Nazario y Colón is SUNY's senior vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion and chief diversity officer. He was born in the South Bronx, New York, and raised in the highlands of Puerto Rico. He is an accomplished administrator with over 30 years of experience in various industries including higher education, business, the U.S. Military, and state government. He was the inaugural chief diversity officer at Western Carolina University, a role he held for seven years.
Dr. Nazario y Colón's research interest focuses on African American faculty and staff retention, Black culture centers, and multiracial identity development. His current board involvement includes the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, past president of the Appalachian Studies Association, Appalachian Regional Commission's Leadership Institute, and the University Press of Kentucky Appalachian Futures: Black, Native, and Queer Voice advisory board. His other board experiences include former Chair of Governor Cooper's Advisory Council on Hispanic Latino Affairs, the Fort Bragg Renaming Commission, the Kentucky Native American Commission, the NASPA Latinx Knowledge Community state representative for Kentucky and North Carolina, and the University of North Carolina System Racial Equity Task Force.
He is a published poet with numerous publications in journals and anthologies. He has authored two full and one chapbook, The Moor of the Bronx, Finishing Line Press 2023, Of Jíbaros and Hillbillies, Plain View Press 2011, and; The Recital, Winged City Press 2011. Dr. Nazario y Colón's research interests are Black culture centers, multiracial identity experience, and student leadership development. His doctoral research focused on African American faculty and staff retention. He is a former U.S. Marine and division one cross country athlete, a DeWitt Clinton high school graduate, a life member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., and co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets.
Dr. Nazario y Colón earned a Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from Western Carolina University, a master's degree in Secondary Education from Pace University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Literature and Latin American Studies from the University of Kentucky.
Dr. Grant is the assistant vice chancellor for inclusive excellence and operations at SUNY, System Administration. She has a combined of over 18+ years of experience working in higher education and non-profit organizations. She has served in DEI leadership roles for over a decade and her work has been regionally and nationally recognized. Prior to joining SUNY, Dr. Grant served as the Director of Staff Learning at Year Up, a national non-profit organization with a mission to close the opportunity divide for young adults in the U.S., where she oversaw org-wide onboarding program for new employees and managers.
Dr. Grant is the recipient of the 2017 Mission Integration Award in Diversity and Inclusion from the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities (ASACCU), she also received an Academic Excellence Award in 2022 for her doctoral work at Northeastern University as well as the 2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Business Award issued by the Albany Business Review. Dr. Grant has presented her work at both regional and national conferences including the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges & Universities (ASACCU) and the College Student Personnel Association of New York State (CSPA-NY). Additionally, Dr. Grant is a trained facilitator for the Intergroup Relations (IGR) program and the co-founding faculty for the IGR course at Siena College, NY. She has committed majority of her professional career in higher education and is committed to create sustainable change by being a scholar-practitioner. Her doctoral research focused on creating a sense of belonging for BIPOC students at predominantly white institutions.
Dr. Grant received a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Northeastern University, a master's degree in Education from The College of Saint Rose, and a Bachelor's degree in Communications and Sociology from SUNY Buffalo '05.
email: joseph.skrivanek@suny.edu
Joseph Skrivanek is a Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at Purchase College and the founding Director of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Community College Mentoring Program (BBCCM) at Purchase College. The program is designed to support students at seven SUNY community colleges in a seamless transition to Purchase College. The BBCCM Program received the President’s Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) from President Obama in 2011.
Skrivanek is presently leading the SUNY Replication Project that is replicating the activities of the Purchase BBCCMP throughout the SUNY System. Dr. Skrivanek received his bachelors and masters degrees in chemistry from the University of Scranton and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University. After postdoctoral work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he joined the faculty at Purchase College in 1979. Dr. Skrivanek has held numerous leadership positions at Purchase College including Dean of Natural Sciences, and Chair of the two Middle States Steering Committees.
email: ruirui.sun@suny.edu
Ruirui Sun is an Associate for Metrics and Data Metrics as well as the PRODiG Coordinator. Ruirui serves as a key adviser to ODEI on the measurement of diversity, equity, and inclusion progress across the SUNY campuses, particularly by creating dashboards and ongoing tracking and analysis of crucial diversity, equity, and inclusion indicators at SUNY System Administration and on the campuses. As the PRODiG coordinator, she is responsible for advancing the PRODiG initiative by processing and analyzing data submitted by participating campuses, facilitating communications with campus PRODiG contacts, and coordinating with ODEI team members accountable for the programmatic elements.
Ruirui is also a doctoral candidate in educational policy and leadership at the University at Albany, expecting to earn her doctoral degree in December 2021. Her dissertation research focuses on how the timing of college decisions may affect individuals' earnings trajectories from high school graduation to more than 30 years later, and how these effects may vary by gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, as well as college type. For this work, she has won the AERA (American Educational Research Association) dissertation grant, funded by the National Science Foundation.
Before joining the ODEI team, Ruirui worked at the Rockefeller Institute of Government as a research analyst. There, she worked on a series of reports that aim to evaluate and inform SUNY and the New York State's higher education policies and practices, including the economic impact of SUNY graduates, the effects of applied work-based learning at SUNY, and the college level correctional education in New York State.