Fielding Graduate University welcomes new Provost

Psychologist, advocate and educator Wendi Williams, Ph.D., is new academic leader

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Oct. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Fielding Graduate University announces the addition of Wendi Williams, Ph.D., to its leadership team. Dr. Williams joins Fielding Graduate University as Provost and Senior Vice President, bringing with her many years of academic and administrative experience, as well as a scholarly background, to this critical role at Fielding.

Williams applies her work as a psychologist, advocate and educator at the intersection of education and psychology to her scholarship and leadership praxis. She also leverages her background and platform to lead organizations that support the optimal development of vulnerable communities, especially societal challenges that can be enriched by diverse women's unique perspectives and approaches to leadership. Williams' recent published work is, WE Matter!: Intersectional Anti-Racist Feminist Interventions with Black Girls and Women, and forthcoming books, Black Women at Work: On Refusal and Recovery and The Majestic Place: The Freedom Possible in Black Women's Leadership.

Williams said she hopes to bring experience and vision to her new role at Fielding.

"I am thrilled and honored to join Fielding Graduate University," said Williams. "I look forward to working alongside the university leadership and community of students, faculty, staff and alumni to affect positive and impactful changes that will continue the Fielding's legacy as a leading educational institution with a vital mission that is especially necessary for our times."

In her previous position as Dean of the School of Education at Mills College, and prior as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Bank Street College, Graduate School of Education, she cultivated equitable contexts for students, staff and faculty development while attending to structural and cultural change to support important curricular and program development. Before these roles, she provided academic leadership as program coordinator and department chair for the Counseling and School Psychology at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY, where she also served as Vice President of the University Faculty Senate and Representative of the School of Education on the university's Union Executive Committee.

Williams completed undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis, where she majored in psychology and minored in African and African American Studies. Williams completed graduate study at Pepperdine University (MA in Psychology) and Georgia State University, where she earned a doctorate in counseling psychology, with an emphasis on multicultural psychology and family systems.

"As Fielding's Provost and Senior Vice President, Dr. Williams will play a vital role in upholding our university's educational integrity and supporting its vision while ensuring our students have the best educational experience," said Fielding Board Chair Karen S. Bogart, Ph.D. "Dr. Williams embodies the scholar and practitioner values of our university, advocating for a just and sustainable world in her research and practice. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I express a warm welcome to Dr. Williams." 

Learn more about Fielding Graduate University at www.fielding.edu.

For 48 years, Fielding Graduate University has been educating leaders, scholars and practitioners for a more just and sustainable world. An accredited nonprofit leader, we combine face‐to‐face and online learning, delivering graduate education that fosters individual development, community collaboration and societal engagement. Taught by faculty representing a breadth of scholarship and practice, our rigorous curriculum offers courses and degrees in psychology, leadership, and education for professionals living and working anywhere in the world.

Learn more at fielding.edu. 

SOURCE Fielding Graduate University