Events

Omar Ali

University of North Carolina Greensboro
Colloquia

When

Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: Petty 150
Dr. Omar Ali is Dean of Lloyd International Honors College at UNC Greensboro. A 1992 graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, he received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 2003. His research interests include: The Making of the African Diaspora, Africa in World History, Black Populism in the New South, African resistance to slavery in colonial Latin America, Islam in the Indian Ocean World. He is a past recipient of the Dean's Award for the Promotion of Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Arts & Sciences at UNCG, was named the Carnegie Foundation North Carolina Professor of the Year, and appointed Knight in the Order of the Academic Palms (Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Palmes Académiques) by the French government for his work with teachers around the world.

There are multiple approaches to improving
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in higher
education. Most presentations and workshops
focus on sharing information. Information is
good but we seek to practice what DEI looks
like. In other words, we learn by doing.
Following the insights of Lev Vygotsky and Lois
Holzman regarding human development, and
whose work focus on creating developmental
social environments (what Vygotsky called
Zones of Proximal Development), the approach
taken here is one of activity combined with
information-sharing–a ‘yes, and’ to use the
language of theatre improvisation. In the
presentation we will discuss the foundations of
thinking-performing environmentally, discuss a
powerful method of creating developmental
spaces that have a 74.42% chance (plus or minus
1.8%) of increasing diversity, equity, and
inclusion.