Education professor Clinton Beckford has accepted a two-year appointment as acting vice-president, equity, diversity, and inclusion, UWindsor president Robert Gordon announced last week.

This appointment will provide guidance, advocacy, insight, and leadership as the University works toward a Senate-governed leadership role at the vice-president level. Dr. Beckford will lead a process to establish bylaws for the permanent position.

In this role as a member of the executive leadership team of the University of Windsor, he will lead and support efforts to address racism and discrimination on campus and provide guidance to ensure that equity, diversity, and inclusion priorities thoughtfully inform decision making.

Beckford is the associate dean, teacher education, in the Faculty of Education. Dr. Gordon praised his depth of experience as a highly respected advocate for social and environmental justice, as an agent of change in the ongoing work of dismantling systemic oppression on this campus and beyond, and as an educational and administrative leader.

“Dr. Beckford brings extensive research, knowledge, and experience working with racialized, marginalized, and Indigenous communities locally and internationally to this role, as well as a deep knowledge of our campus community,” Gordon wrote.