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Mary J. Wardell-Ghirarduzzi, PhD, vice provost & chief diversity officer at the University of San Francisco (USF) will present a webinar titled, A Call to Conversion: Eliminating anti-Blackness as a Jesuit Catholic University on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 from 4 – 5:30 p.m.
The purpose of Wardell-Ghirarduzzi’s talk is to help Ignatian educators and leaders connect their intent to become an anti-racist university to their impact for reconciliation and justice for the liberation of Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color (BIPOC) on a Jesuit, Catholic university campus. Guided by the universal apostolic preferences, Wardell-Ghirarduzzi will discuss archetypical behaviors that can encourage or prevent reconciliation and justice; and will offer a redemptive framework for students, staff, and faculty to actively fight against anti-Black racism within Jesuit higher education in the United States.
Wardell-Ghirarduzzi is a seasoned executive leader and best-selling author serving the California higher education community for more than 25 years. Leading as the inaugural vice provost & chief diversity officer at USF, she is an expert in building strategic and lasting organizational capacity for diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is the president of the San Francisco Public Library Commission and in 2018, she helped the organization win the coveted National Public Library of the Year award.
Known for her servant leadership, she won the most influential woman award by the San Francisco Business Times in 2017 and won the Hero Award by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the Changemaker award by the African American Historical Society of San Francisco.
Currently, Wardell-Ghirarduzzi teaches race, diversity, and leadership to graduate students in the USF Schools of Management and Education. To prepare today’s corporate and non-profit leaders for the difficult yet necessary racial equity and social justice work ahead, she founded The DEI Leadership Group, LLC, a crisis management, diversity solutions, and leadership development practice based in San Francisco. In 2020, she released her first book, Twice as Good: Leadership and Power for Women of Color. Wardell-Ghirarduzzi’s article – A redemptive call to the altar: Anti-black racism in Jesuit higher education – was published in the Spring 2020 issue of Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education.
Wardell-Ghirarduzzi received a doctorate from Pepperdine’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology; a master’s degree in cross cultural counseling and social justice education from San Diego State University, and a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of the Pacific.
The event is presented by the Canisius College Office of Diversity & Inclusion. For additional information, please call 716-888-2118.
