Rising up in a working-class navy household, Dr. Shawna Patterson-Stephens tended to maneuver round fairly a bit as a teen. She lived in California, Florida and abroad in Turkey earlier than settling down in Detroit the place she skipped her junior 12 months of highschool and graduated valedictorian of her class.
“I bear in mind asking my mother as a child, if she had put some cash into financial savings for me to go to school, and he or she checked out me with indignance,” says Patterson-Stephens with a chuckle. “She mentioned, ‘Woman, no. What are you speaking about?’”
Pondering that she would comply with within the footsteps of different relations, Patterson-Stephens was poised to affix the navy till her godmother disrupted these plans and insisted that she pursue a four-year faculty training. 
Dr. Shawna Patterson-Stephens
“She was very instrumental in my closing decision-making as a result of I used to be going to enter the Navy,” remembers Patterson-Stephens.
Now, together with her sights set on attending a college, the query was which one, and the way a lot cash would they provide Patterson-Stephens in order that she might attend?
“I bear in mind driving the bus residence from work sooner or later and I noticed somebody with the Central Michigan College bumper sticker, and so I utilized as a result of I acknowledged the bumper sticker,” says Patterson-Stephens, who graduated in 2003 from CMU with a level in sociology.
Practically twenty years later, Patterson-Stephens returned to her alma mater in 2021 to grow to be CMU’s Vice President for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging after honing her management abilities at a number of different faculties and universities throughout the nation. She is the primary Black girl to ever function a vp on the college.
Reporting to CMU’s president, Patterson-Stephens presently serves because the senior variety officer on the public, regional college. Over the previous three years, she has spearheaded spectacular initiatives on the college that now touts an enrollment of greater than 14,000 college students.
“As an establishment, we are literally not a stranger to ensuring that training is accessible,” says Patterson-Stephens, pointing out that CMU was one of many first establishments within the state of Michigan within the 1800s to supply instructional help to the youngsters of migrant staff.
Early on, the college welcomed Black college students—a number of from households comprising the Previous Settlers group—at a time when many faculties and universities had been reluctant to take action.
“A lot of these households nonetheless dwell right here,” says Patterson-Stephens of the Black alumni. “Their youngsters nonetheless go to this establishment. They work right here.”
A kind of alums, Emma Norman Todd, was lately honored by the college with a lecture collection named in her honor. Todd was one of many first Black college students to attend the college situated in Mount Nice, Michigan—about 150 miles from Detroit. After finishing her research in 1910, Todd taught in a single-room faculty within the Mid-Michigan group of Remus, the place she was born. The lecture collection celebrates Todd’s work as an educator and advocate for group and equality by bringing distinguished students within the fields of racial and social justice to campus to share their information and experiences.
For a three-person division that’s small however “mighty” as Patterson-Stephens calls it, she and her workers are busy setting technique, programming and workshopping to help inclusive practices on campus. Patterson-Stephens work has centered on using a data-informed method by using surveys, knowledge assortment and assessments to suggest ideas. Patterson-Stephens guided the event of CMU’s first strategic plan for variety since 2012 and reinstated the College and Employees of Shade Alliance, which had remained inoperable since 2013. The Alliance works to help school and workers recruitment and retention on the college. She additionally prioritized the event of the Queer/Trans Alliance, a newly developed affinity house for school and workers.
Participating instantly with college students has been a spotlight of Patterson-Stephens’ work.
“I attempt to guarantee that folks know who I’m,” says Patterson-Stephens, who had to assist quell tensions on campus after a spate of current racist incidents led to campus protests. In April, movies circulated on social media displaying CMU college students utilizing racial slurs. “I made positive I used to be accessible. I made positive I used to be there to downside resolve.”
Ensuring that all college students really feel protected has been an important a part of her work.
CMU’s work in creating an inclusive house for racially minoritized communities “wasn’t simply one thing that was achieved due to a bit of laws that got here throughout anyone’s desk,” says Patterson-Stephens. “I am not saying we did not have hardships, nevertheless it’s simply folks determine to make selections round right here earlier than they had been compelled upon them.”
This previous summer season, CMU hosted its first Black alumni weekend and its variety gala—now in its fourth 12 months—and its variety symposium—now in its tenth 12 months—which pulls a statewide viewers.
Patterson-Stephens’ work has led to nationwide recognition. Earlier this 12 months, she was awarded the Bobby E. Leach Fairness, Variety, and Inclusion award from the Nationwide Affiliation of Pupil Personnel Directors (NASPA).
“What’s exceedingly uncommon about Dr. Patterson-Stephens’ profession has been her contributions to the literature of pupil affairs and variety as an administrator; most ceaselessly specializing in her dedication to the entry and success of scholars who’ve been traditionally underserved by greater training,” says Dr. Martino Harmon, vp of pupil life on the College of Michigan. “She has demonstrated tireless skilled service in complicated administrative roles whereas sustaining an lively analysis agenda.” 
Dr. Shawna Patterson-Stephens is a board member of the Dr. Melvin C. Terrell Academic Basis.
Harmon—who has recognized Patterson-Stephens throughout the years—factors to her most up-to-date guide, Advancing Inclusive Excellence in Larger Schooling: Sensible Approaches to Selling Variety, Fairness, Inclusion, and Belonging, and her experience in Black and Latinx points in greater training, media influences within the postsecondary sector, and significant principle in greater instructional contexts—as a scholar-practitioner on the rise. “All through her profession, she continues to show and he or she additionally serves as a mentor to a number of generations of college students.”
After incomes a grasp’s diploma in pupil affairs administration from Michigan State College, Patterson-Stephens went on to Florida State College the place she earned a Ph.D. and accomplished her dissertation below the steerage of Dr. Tamara Bertrand Jones.
After commencement, she held quite a few pupil affairs positions at quite a few faculties and universities together with the College of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Williams School, the College of Pennsylvania, Penn State College and Michigan State College (MSU).
Her begin in pupil affairs, nonetheless, started as a residence corridor director—and later as a fancy director at MSU—the place she developed a deeper appreciation for the sector of pupil affairs.
“That is the place the place I discovered disaster administration. I discovered how you can be a greater skilled, a greater supervisor, extra responsive, extra empathetic and considerate,” says Patterson-Stephens. “I used to be not essentially the most considerate after I first began, and fortunately, I had some those that caught with me, regardless of my studying curve.”
What was clear again then was that, if Patterson-Stephens had been to advance inside the discipline, she must marry her expertise with theoretical analysis.
“Her spectacular profession has been exemplary in its inclusiveness and enrichment of the tutorial and private lives of scholars of colour,” says Dr. Melvin Terrell, vp emeritus at Northeastern Illinois College and the founding father of the Melvin C. Terrell (MCT) Academic Basis, a nonprofit group devoted to selling excellence in pupil affairs. “She has demonstrated tireless skilled service in complicated administrative roles whereas sustaining a sturdy analysis agenda.”
Patterson-Stephens serves on the MCT board of administrators.
For now, Patterson-Stephens says that she appreciates the numerous alternatives that she has to mentor college students and assist her alma mater advance ahead.
“I simply know that I wish to make an affect in essentially the most genuine and reciprocal approach,” says Patterson-Stephens. “I don’t wish to ever assume I do know what’s finest for a group. I need the group to talk to me.”
