Inclusive Excellence directory

Dean's Fellows

Irvin Hunt

Irvin Hunt is a Dean’s Fellow in Inclusive Excellence, with a focus on tenure and promotion across the college. Last year he received several recognitions for his scholarship and teaching. His first book  “Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics, and the Black Cooperative Movement” explores how Black artists and activists pioneered practices of mutual aid and fundamentally changed what a social movement can be. “Dreaming the Present” received an honorable mention for the William Scarborough Sanders Prize of the Modern Language Associations, a prize awarded annually to an outstanding scholarly study in Black American literature or culture. It was short listed for the Stone Book Award, which recognizes the most exemplary contemporary scholarship and writing within the field of African American history and culture. The book was a finalist for the Best New Book in African American History and Culture from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Hunt was named the 2022-23 Helen Corley Petit Scholar for an extraordinary record of scholarship and teaching.

Mariselle Meléndez

As LAS Dean’s Fellow for Faculty Development, Dr. Meléndez will be assisting in the college’s efforts to provide faculty members effective assessment and mentoring to benefit their career advancement and engagement within the university. With that goal in mind, Dr. Meléndez will be working within the next year on the following initiatives: (1) Develop a policy guide for best practices in annual evaluation of tenure track faculty that addresses performance across the university’s missions of research, teaching, and service, and that considers public engagement as an activity that may encompass all three missions, in light of the changes to Communication 9 on this topic; (2) Assist in implementing the associate professor mentoring program as developed in Spring 2021 by the Associate Professor Mentoring Committee; and (3) Assist departments in implementing mentoring plans (suitable to their specific faculty demographics and interdisciplinary expectations) that are consistent with the guidelines laid out in Provost Communication 21.

Trina Wright-Dixon

Trina J. Wright-Dixon is a Dean’s Fellow in Inclusive Excellence facilitating the Inclusive Pedagogy Certificate Program. This 14-week program engages in online and in-person experiential learning to teach faculty and instructors practical tools for designing and teaching courses geared towards diverse populations of undergraduate and graduate students. Wright-Dixon is also a professor in the Department of Communication.