José Villalba, Ph.D., LPC

José A. Villalba is the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer. Prior to his current position, José served as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty, Evaluation, and Inclusivity in the Office of the Dean of the College. He also is a professor of Counseling. He has been affiliated with the Department of Counseling since arriving at Wake Forest in 2011. Prior to arriving at Wake Forest, he was an associate professor of counseling at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as an assistant professor of counseling at Indiana State University.

He teaches courses in multicultural counseling, school counseling, and health and human services. His research interests include health disparities in Latina/o youth, as well as Latina/o access to and completion of higher education options.

Over the past 4 years, since arriving in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, he has facilitated diversity and inclusion efforts for staff, faculty, and students, in an effort to address issues of access and equity across campus

Chris A. Nelson, Ph.D.

Decolonizing Education is More Than a Land Acknowledgement

Nelson (K’awaika and Diné) is an Assistant Professor at the Morgridge College of Education. She is from the K’awika and Diné tribes and grew up in Farmington, NM. The research she engages with challenges the status quo of education for Indigenous students and communities. Her primary research interest addresses the collective and political factors influencing higher education access for tribal communities and students, which ranges from student experiences to policy. She also infuses Indigenous perspectives and methods to explore the experiences related to college access and persistence programs.

William E. Cross, Jr., Ph.D.

Deconstructing the Deficit Perspective on Black Life

Cross received his doctorate in social psychology from Princeton University and is the author of a previously important book on black identity titled, Shades of Black, published by Temple University Press in 1991. In 2017 Dr. Cross was accorded emeritus status by the University of Denver, where he held a joint appointment in Counseling Psychology and Higher Education. The first twenty years of his academic career were spent at the African Studies and Research Center, Cornell University. There followed appointments at Penn State, UMass-Amherst, and UNLV, and ten years with the Critical Psychology Program at the Graduate Center-CUNY, in New York City.