Profile: Samantha Ivery
Samantha Ivery is the director of equity initiatives in the Office of Internationalization and Equity. She provides assessment of and strategic direction for diversity, access, and equity initiatives that are supported by Academic Affairs.
She is a member of the Beyond Racial Equity Strategic Review Project Team, which is a cross-campus group that has been working with a consulting firm called Beyond Racial Equity to develop action plans to improve the experience of students, staff, and faculty as relates to equity, sense of belonging, and accessibility.
She is also involved in supporting the Deans’ Fellowship Program, which is in its second year. Undergraduate students who are selected for the Deans’ Fellowship help ensure that the College’s values are reflected in our pedagogy, co-curricular programming, and other academic initiatives by working closely with the Deans’ leadership team (department chairs, associate deans, and program directors); faculty; and BIPOC and other student organizations to facilitate dialogue and actions promoting racial justice, equity, healing, and inclusion within the academic environment. Ivery is working with the deans and vice provost to build the program’s structure and enhance the leadership and mentoring of the fellows.
The Teach-In on Race is an annual on-campus event founded by WLP Professor Jabari Asim, during which a number of panels focused on racial equity are hosted on campus. Ivery is on the event’s planning team along with Dr. Anthony Pinder, Brooke Knight, and Dr. Tuesda Roberts (Academic Affairs). The team plans the whole event, which entails collaborating with colleagues across campus to identify a theme, arranging the schedule of events, and securing a keynote speaker.
Ivery is working with Pinder on a new initiative to help deans and department chairs assess their diversity plans. They are creating a framework for the Academic Affairs division around assessment related to equity, diversity, staff/faculty retention, and impact on student development. She also partners with Roberts on two of Roberts’s signature programs that assist faculty in assessing, developing, and incorporating anti-oppressive and inclusive pedagogy into their teaching praxis: the Diversity Fellows Program and the Reimagining Equity in Learning and Teaching at Emerson (R.E.L.A.T.E.) Program.
Ivery will celebrate her four-year anniversary at Emerson this fall. She initially worked in the Social Justice Center as the director of diversity and equity initiatives. In this role, she helped the VP for social justice and equity outline best practices for the recruitment and retention of students, faculty, and staff from marginalized groups. She also collaborated with the provost and academic cabinet to support faculty in the development of inclusive pedagogical practices and the infusion of diversity in curriculum development. Partnering with Intercultural Student Affairs, International Student Affairs, Parent & Family Programs, and Human Resources, she helped create new student orientation and new employee orientation events focused on diversity, social justice, and equity. In 2020, she helped start a faculty, staff, and student initiative called The Renewal Collective, which acknowledges the pervasiveness and impact of all forms of systemic oppression for women and gender-expansive people in Asian, Black, Latinx, multiracial, Native American, and Pacific Islander communities and creates spaces for individual and collective healing.
Ivery has more than 20 years of experience in program development and social justice education. Prior to Emerson, she worked at Dartmouth College as an assistant dean and director of the Center for Women and Gender. She has also been an advisor to international students/coordinator of multicultural programs at Haverford College and director of projects in campus equity and inclusion at Bennington College.
Ivery cites many reasons for feeling at home at Emerson. She grew up appreciating theater and music, so it is exciting for her to work at a college that is educating future storytellers and artists. She also enjoys the College’s small size and its community. She explained, “The faculty, staff, and students at Emerson live out loud and I love it….I want to be a part of a community that values the best that people have to offer and works at adding hope and positive, sustained change in the world….I think Emerson is trying to do that, and I want to be a part of that.”
Ivery is originally from St. Louis, MO, and Herndon, VA. She currently lives in Dedham, MA. She has a BA in theater performance from the University of Missouri–Columbia and an MA Ed in counseling and student affairs from Western Kentucky University. She also has a certificate in executive education from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and is hoping to finish a PhD program in higher education and student affairs at Indiana University someday.
Outside of the office, music is “as vital to her life as air.” She has played the piano since she was six years old and is classically trained. She loves making playlists and some of her favorite artists include Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Edwin Hawkins, Kirk Franklin, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, Lou Rawls, Jazzyfatnastees, The Roots Band, Prince, Marc Broussard, Maxwell, and India.Arie, to name but a few. She is an avid sports fan, emerging yogi, and has recently picked up the new hobbies of watercolors and gardening. She is currently immersed in learning about peace lilies, hostas, snake plants, and monsteras.
Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)