Poonam Arora, Ph.D.

14 Pages·2017·0.19 MB·English

by  Richard Turner

Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
EDUCATION
1991 Ph.D. Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
Areas of expertise: Film Studies, Freshman Writing Pedagogy, Postcolonial
Cinema, Literary & Post-Structuralist Theory & Postmodern Fiction
Dissertation: “Cinematographic Narrative and Postmodern Fiction”
1986 Diploma in Film Appreciation
Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, India
1984 Diploma in American Studies (Graduate level)
Smith College, Northampton, MA
1980 Masters in English
University of Delhi, India
1978 B.A. (Honors in English) Minors in History & Philosophy
St. Stephen's College, Delhi, India
EMPLOYMENT
2017 Professor of Humanities (On sabbatical) Grinnell College
2013--16 Associate Dean of the College for Diversity & Inclusion/Chief Diversity
Officer/ Rosenfield Chair for Diversity and the Liberal Arts, Grinnell
College, IA
2009--13 Associate Vice President for Diversity Integration & Global Education, and
Professor, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN
2007--09 Associate Dean and Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, Zayed
University, UAE (responsible for the administration of the College of
Arts and Sciences at the Abu Dhabi campus) On leave from U. of
Michigan-Dearborn
2002--07 Chair, Department of Humanities, University of Michigan-Dearborn (The
Humanities department at this time was a division of 8 academic
disciplines; 50+ full time faculty and as many adjunct faculty
2000--02 Director, Program in Women & Gender Studies, UMD
1998--2009 Associate Professor of English and Film Studies, UMD
1995 Spring Visiting Assistant Professor, Program in Film & Video and Dept. of
Women’s Studies, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
1991-1998 Assistant Professor of English, UM Dearborn
1990-92 Director, Writing Program, UM-Dearborn
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
RECENT INSTITUTIONAL INTIATIVES
2013--15 As Associate Dean of the College, I have worked on the following projects:
•
Responsible for diversifying, retaining, and recruiting diverse faculty & staff
•
Diversity Training for New Faculty: Implicit/Unconscious Bias & How it Enters the
Learning Environment
•
Advise all faculty search chairs of strategies for diversifying applicant pools
•
Organized a day long teach in on MLK Day 2015 with Professor Patricia Williams of
Columbia University Law School (Theme: Critical Race theory)
•
Grinnell is a member of the Consortium for Faculty Diversity; as the college’s CFD
liaison I connect all faculty searches to this database of minority faculty and post-
docs
•
Trained as a Title IX investigator and coordinator by ATIXA. I work to align
diversity and gender equity within the larger inclusion agenda. Member, Title IX
Taskforce on Safety, Responsibility and Prevention
•
Recently added Disability as a key diversity factor to the Council on Diversity and
Inclusion. I work closely with the Office of Disability Services and with researchers
on Disability Studies to address dis/ability within the inclusion model, not the
deficit model
•
June 2015--Diversity and Inclusion in the Science Classroom – Best-
Practices Conference
•
Administered the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to members of
the Athletics Department, Human Resources, Admissions and Financial Aid, Office
of Intercultural Engagement; and Dining Services. Assessment of 100+ staff for IDI.
•
Institutional coordinator for the Posse Program http://www.possefoundation.org
Grinnell recruits Posse scholars from Washington DC and Los Angeles. Next year
the college will start recruiting from New Orleans and discontinue the Los Angeles
program.
•
Institutional coordinator for the Mellon Mays University Fellows (MMUF)
•
Co-Chair of the Council on Diversity & Inclusion at Grinnell College
•
Higher Education Research Institute (UCLA): Campus participation in HERI Faculty
Campus Climate Survey: Will analyze the results to set campus benchmarks and peer
school comparisons
•
Intercultural Development Inventory—IDI—Trained as an IDI administrator and
coach. Work with staff units to enhance their intercultural proficiencies
•
Work with faculty search committees to implement best practices in diversity hiring
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
•
Campus wide initiative—Higher Education for Higher Consciousness—
partnership with Peace and Conflict Studies Program; Wellness Program;
Students for a Responsible Drug Policy; Student Health and Counseling
•
Conduct Diversity Training for New Student Orientation
•
Peer Connection Pre-Orientation Program: Designed new peer mentoring & diversity
orientation for 1st generation and domestic students of color
•
4M: Millennials & Mentors Making Meaning: Black Alumni Mentoring Current
Students of Color (in partnership with Alumni Relations and Career Planning Office)
•
Initiated new support program for 1st generation students
•
Working on a new quantitative and qualitative dashboard to track the achievement &
retention of domestic students of color
•
Grinnell Global Gateway: Increase recruitment of international students from South
Asia
•
“Repurposing the Black Cultural Center”: A proposal for renovations and upgrade of
the Kimbo House to create more programmatic uses. Secured $75K funding from
alumnae.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Knowledge Creation in Pluralistic Societies and for a Global Context
The manuscript is divided into three sections:
• What the millennial generation wants from institutions of higher education
• What the 21st century institution needs to facilitate through the curriculum; the
co-curricular and other aspects of organizational development
• What policy conversations should be taking place to foster culturally specific
educational practices across different sectors of higher education
(undergraduate; graduate, professional schools) and in different regions of the
world
“From ‘Separate but Equal’ to ‘Diverse and Equal’--60 years after Brown v.
Board of Education: Comparative Analysis of US Supreme Court
jurisprudence on affirmative action and diversity best practices at liberal arts
institutions.” It is my premise that whereas the Supreme Court has responded to the
nation’s mounting “pluralism anxiety,” over the last half century, it is the responsibility of
higher education to refine what William Connolly calls “the pluralistic sensibility.”
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
PREVIOUS INSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVES
2009—12 As Associate Vice President for Diversity Integration and Chief Diversity
Officer at Hamline University, I worked on the following initiatives:
* Served as a member of the Strategic Plan Committee for Academic Affairs
* Led a delegation of Hamline administrators to the CIRP Summer Institute at UCLA
on how to achieve institutional goals for diversity, global citizenship and civic
engagement derived from the analysis of institutional data gathered from the HERI
surveys
• Coordinated the participation of Hamline faculty in the climate survey administered
by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA
• Coordinated the participation of Hamline graduating students in the diversity survey
administered by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA
• Created an in-house climate survey for staff at Hamline
• Created a new center for Multicultural Initiatives and Sexuality with a new Assistant
Director for Gender and Sexuality
• Chaired a campus wide committee to revise the cultural breadth requirement of the
core curriculum to better meet the educational needs of a global workforce (Proposal
available upon request)
• Recruiting international students from India, China, and other Asian countries
• Chair, Diversity Integration Standing Committee, Hamline University,
charged with fostering and advancing a strategic and integrated approach to
diversity in all aspects of university life
• Working with the Deans Council and the President’s University Leadership Team to
formulate educational policy and curricular innovation around multicultural
competencies
• Working with the Office of Multicultural and International Student Affairs on
connecting the programming within Student Affairs with the curriculum in the
College of Liberal Arts; School of Education; School of Law and School of Business
respectively
• Moderator for the Community Dialogues series of the Hamline School of Education
with partners in K-12 education in the Twin Cities
2009-12 Designed the following workshops for faculty, graduate students & staff:
* Diversity Workshop for New Faculty—“Who We Are and How We
Engage Inclusive Excellence”
* How to Create Inclusive Work Environments: Staff Workshop for
Supervisors
* Faculty Development Workshops: “Diversity Flashpoints in the
Classroom” Using theater workshops based on “Theater of the
Oppressed” Freire pedagogy
* “Diversity, Campus Policing and Community Building”
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
* “Managing Diversity Flashpoints in the Classroom”
* “Diversity Training for School of Education staff
* “Journalism, Social Responsibility and Diversity” for the staff of the
student newspaper—The Oracle
2010--13 The Assistant Dean of Multicultural Affairs, and the coordinator for Race,
Gender and Beyond (the program for faculty development in diversity) report
to me. This enabled the Office of Diversity Integration to synergistically
connect the curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular diversity initiatives
at the institution
2007-09 As Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Zayed University I
organized the following initiatives:
• Resident dean of the College for the Abu Dhabi campus of ZU (The Dean of the
College was based in Dubai 100 km away)
• Served as the interim dean for the College of Arts and Sciences for both the Abu
Dhabi and the Dubai campuses
• Coordinator for Zayed University students’ participation in the premier class of
Sheikh Mohamed University Scholars Program with New York University, Abu
Dhabi. President John Sexton of NYU taught the course---The US Constitution and
Religion--to UAE student scholars
• Chaired the international search for the head of the newly constituted merged
department of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Served as a member of the accreditation team for the Middle States Accreditation
in the US
• Developed a program for a combined major in Business and Art and Design (in
response to the country’s burgeoning art economy and in anticipation of the
Louvre and Guggenheim museums setting up off sites in Abu Dhabi)
• Designed a new exam system for the multiple section courses in general
education Core Curriculum at both campuses
• Served on the planning committee for the design of the state of the art, gender
integrated campus at the Sweihan site
• Worked to establish institutional relationships between ZU and the newly
instituted newspaper—The National
• Organized Artist in Residence program in cooperation with The Goethe Institute,
Gulf Region
• Organized “The Word of God: The Quran through the Centuries,” Talk by Nasser
Khalili (collector of the largest private collection on Islamic art in the world)
DEPARTMENTAL INITIATIVES
2002-07 As Chair of the multi-disciplinary Humanities department at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn (comprised of 50+ full time and 45+
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
part time faculty members) I undertook the following major
responsibilities:
* Hired 16 new faculty in tenure track positions including 2 target of
opportunity minority faculty in joint appointments across multiple units
* Reviewed 60 full and part time lecturers for long term contracts
upon the formation of the Lecturers Educational Organization--LEO
* Designed protocol for hiring, renewal and address of grievance with
the newly formed lecturers’ union—LEO--working closely with HR.
(Humanities dept. had the largest cohort of unionized faculty in the entire
University of Michigan system—60+ faculty
* Hired 16 tenure track faculty into the Dept. of Humanities including
two target of opportunity hires for Arab American and Detroit Studies
respectively
* Initiated the development of a Minor in Arabic language and
culture
* Initiated an interdisciplinary Minor in Detroit Metropolitan Studies
* Initiated a major revision of the English curriculum in the
Humanities department to include literary theory, cultural studies and
world literatures in English
* Initiated a track--World and Ethnic Literatures & Language (WELL
track) within the English major in (response to the School of Education
requirements mandated by the State of Michigan’s Department of
Education)
* Designed a comprehensive campus wide Writing Program (this was
previously housed in the Humanities division) and recruited the Director
of this program in a national search
INITIATIVES UNDERTAKEN AS A FACULTY MEMBER
• Founded and coordinated The GLARE Project (Global Learning and
Responsible Engagement) a series of talks, performances and other events on
global learning and diversity at UM-Dearborn. The project was inaugurated by
Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Religion and Law at the University of Chicago
• Executive Committee member, Center for Arab American Studies at UM-D
• Senior member of the delegation from the Center for Arab American Studies to
visit 8 Palestinian universities to set up exchange protocols for faculty and
students
• Organized two Detroit-Jerusalem Institutes (In Dearborn MI and Ramallah,
West Bank territory) for young researchers and faculty. These institutes were
funded by a grant of 100K from the US State Department
• Founding member of the Executive Committee for African and African-
American Studies. Major contributor in designing the minor in AAAS;
establishing links between AAAS, Women and Gender Studies and Arab
American Studies respectively
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
• Taskforce of African and African American Studies program that advocated the
establishment of the Office of Diversity Affairs (to provide institutional support to
minority students, especially after the Supreme Court decision prohibiting
affirmative action at the University of Michigan
• Conversations on Race, Taskforce of UM-Dearborn and New Detroit (an
NGO) for advocacy on issues of race in urban America
• Member Planning Committee for Difficult Dialogues—Ford Foundation Grant
of $125,000 to initiate institutional forum on race, religion and politics at UM-
Dearborn
• Institutional member, Taskforce on Creativity, Arts and Cultural Affairs
(Constituted by Governor Jennifer Granholm of the State of Michigan to
strengthen arts entrepreneurship in Michigan higher education)
• Participant in Race Matters: a television show produced by Detroit Public
Television (PBS affiliate)
• Member, Search Committee to select the Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences
and Letters, UM-Dearborn
• Race, Labor and Cinema in Detroit—Won a competitive diversity grant to
organize a series of events and to develop a course on the subject
• Designed and taught the Film Studies minor in the Dept. of Humanities with
courses cross-listed across the College
• Developed a course American Cinema/American Industry for UAW
workers enrolled at UM-D in collaboration with the Institute for Labor Relations
(UM-Ann Arbor) and the United Auto Workers (UAW)
OUTREACH & PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
2015 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Teach In: Hosted Professor Patricia
Williams, Columbia University Law School to speak on “Critical Race
Theory” and Race Relations in America
2010 University Conversations in Diversity and Dialogue Initiated
A two day series of events with Valarie Kaur
http://valariekaur.blogspot.com/
2009 Commitment to Community series speaker at Hamline University Keith
Boyd (Democratic party strategist)
2008 Worked with the Embassy of India, UAE and the Abu Dhabi Culture and
Heritage (a federal agency) to organize an exhibition of contemporary Indian
art in Fall 08
2008 Worked with the Embassy of India, UAE and the School of Oriental and
African Studies to organize a festival of Indian cinema in Fall 08
2008 Organized Zayed Univ. partnership with a new UAE newspaper--The
National--to encourage readership, faculty publications etc.
2008 Organized 3 exhibitions at ZU of visiting artists to the Middle East
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
2008 Workshop on “Building Diversity in Women’s Leadership” at Women and
Global Leadership international conference, Zayed University’s Institute
for Women and Leadership
2008 Working with the Indian Embassy in the UAE to organize a festival on Indian
cinema (Oct-Nov 2008)
2006 Pfizer Research Laboratories (Ann Arbor, MI) Talk on “New Models of
Corporate Social Responsibility” in the series on Pharmaco-diplomacy and
Community Leaders
2006 Telugu Association of North America (TANA) Convention. Talk on
“Immigrant Experiences and Bi-Racial Marriages”
2005 Tamil Association of North America (TANA) Curated a film screening
and panel discussion on inter racial marriages in the South Asian community
in North America
2003 Who Are the Midnight’s Children? A Film series and an on-line course
in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company and University Musical
Society production of Midnight’s Children. Presented the production at a
special event sponsored by Pfizer Research Laboratories—the play’s chief
corporate sponsor.
2001-02 Bollywood and Beyond: Popular Culture and Cinema in South
Asia, Year long film series, symposia and panels, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor.
1999 The Other Cinema of India: Representations of the Subaltern, Film
series, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1998-00 Jewish Culture and History in Film, Temple Bethel, W. Bloomfield, MI.
1997 Asian Film, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI.
1996 Approaching Mental Health Through Film Melodrama, Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute, Southfield, MI.
1995 Women and Differences Film Series, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1995 Cinema in India, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
2015 Executive Leadership Academy, Center for the Study of Higher
Education, UC Berkeley, March 22-27, 2015. Academy theme: Leading in a
Multicultural Context
2015 Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
training in effective and high stakes communication
https://www.vitalsmarts.com/products-solutions/crucial-conversations/
2014 Selected for participation in the HERS Summer Institute for Women’s
Leadership in Higher Education, Bryn Mawr College
2013 ATIXA: Association of Title IX Administrators: Title IX Coordinator
Certification Training
2012 Trained as a grant writer at a 3 day workshop administered by the Grant
Training Center, Univ;. Toift lMe iInXn Iensvoetsat igator Certification Training
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
2011 Trained as a qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development
Inventory and have administered this instrument to 200+ Hamline faculty
and staff and 100+ Grinnell staff
2011 Led a delegation of staff and faculty to the CIRP (Cooperative Institutional
Research Program’s) Summer Institute at the Higher Education research
Institute of UCLA to be trained in the interpretation and analysis of
institutional data generated by the CIRP surveys. Will lead the initiative to
design policy on diversity and inclusive excellence based on these data
2011 Led a delegation of 14 faculty, staff and students from Hamline U. to the
National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) in San Francisco, CA.
This will be followed by a year-long series of events emanating from NCORE
2010 Led a delegation of 10 faculty, staff and students from Hamline U. to the
National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) in National Harbor,
MD
2009 Designed and led a workshop, “The Branding of American Higher Education
in the Gulf: US Cultural Influence vs. National Self Determination” at the
ACE annual conference
2008 Civic Engagement and Philanthropy in the Arab World, led a student
delegation to the conference at American University in Cairo, Oct. 2008
2008 “Building Diversity and Cohesion in Women’s Leadership”
workshop at Women as Global Leaders international
conference, Zayed University, March 2008
2008 AAC&U conference on General Education and Integrated Learning, Boston,
MA February
2007 Participation by invitation at the President’s Symposium (Organized by
Academic Search Inc.--head-hunting firm for higher education—for potential
college presidents.
2007 Campus Women LEAD: 2 Day Workshop on Developing Inclusive Leadership
in Higher Education. Center for the Education of Women, University of
Michigan (By invitation)
2005 Women in Leadership conference, Michigan State University
2005 Association of American Colleges and Universities “Pedagogies of
Engagement” Washington DC, April 14-16
2005 ACE Regional Leadership Forum for Women in Higher Education, UM-Ann
Arbor, MI, Oct. 2-4 (By invitation)
2003 ACE Workshop for Department Chairs and Division Deans, Washington D.C.,
June 17-20
CONSULTING
2010 University of Southern Maine, Member of the task-force that advised
on the revitalization of the Arts and Humanities major at the Lewiston/
Auburn Campus
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Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
U. of Southern Maine: “How Do We Integrate Diversity at all Levels of
the University: Opportunities, Challenges & Costs”
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Race, Cinema & the National Imaginary: 100 Years of Race Cinema from
Birth of a Nation (1915) to Selma (2014) Taught in Fall 2015
Gender, Power and Peace: a Case Study of Peace Practices Derived from
Select Nobel Peace Prize Winners Taught in Fall 2015
Bin-Laden in the Age of Facebook: The Debate on Islam and Modernity in
the 21st Century (First year Seminar) Fall 2010
Gender Power and Peace (Graduate level course) Taught this course based on the
philosophies and activism of women, Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Masters in Liberal
Studies program in Spring 2011
What Does Diversity Mean in the Corporate, Non-profit, Higher Education
and Civil Society Sectors? Hamline University School of Business
Drama, Performance and Conflict Resolution (200 level) Course designed and
taught to Education majors at ZU. Designed to cultivate analysis of conflict in literary
texts and how to use the skills toward conflict resolution in social, community and
family life
Shakespeare on Stage, Page and Screen*# (100 level First Year Seminar) Taught
in conjunction with stage productions at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada or the
Royal Shakespeare Company residency at the University Musical Society in UM-Ann
Arbor.
Film and Society* (200 level) Traditional classroom and on-line delivery
Introduction to Film* (200 level) Traditional classroom
Narratives of Film and Literature* (300 level) Traditional classroom
American Silent Cinema* (300 level) Traditional classroom
Asian National Cinemas* (300 level) Traditional classroom and on-line delivery
Black Cinema* (300 level) Traditional classroom, comparing African and African
American film practices
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