For the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) Leadership Team at Arcadia University, recognizing the contributions of colleagues in advancing antiracist research, cultivating spaces for advocacy and transformative change, and championing equity and justice both inside and outside of the classroom is an essential aspect of our mission. The critical work of dismantling racism, after all, often goes unrecognized, constituting the hidden labor of staff, faculty, and administrators dedicated to building a better world. Nevertheless, many continue to step forward, dedicating themselves to challenging racist ideologies through their teaching and activism while also working tirelessly to break down the systemic barriers that restrict access, equity, and inclusion within the University and beyond. In recognition of their vital contributions, the CASAA Leadership Team is honored to announce the recipients of this year’s CASAA Awards.

The CASAA Award for Excellence in Advancing Antiracist Initiatives
Leaders in antiracist work at Arcadia are dedicated to widespread and longstanding change, for “revolution is not a one-time event,” as poet and activist Audre Lorde once declared. Recipients of this award embody that truth through their sustained commitment to projects that dismantle systems, policies, and practices that uphold racial inequities and create spaces where people of diverse backgrounds have equitable access to opportunities/resources. Rather than treating racism as an individual shortcoming, they recognize it as a deeply entrenched societal issue that will require personal, institutional, and systemic change to address. 

The inaugural recipient of the CASAA Award for Excellence in Advancing Antiracist Initiatives is Jon Drucker, Assistant Professor and Collections & Technical Resources Librarian in the Landman Library, for leadership in advancing critical initiatives around educational access. A strong advocate for Open Access materials as well as Open Educational Resources, Drucker works with Arcadia faculty to identify and utilize accessible textbooks and teaching materials in their courses, for the costs of those resources can often serve as barriers to education that disproportionately affect students and researchers from marginalized racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Part of the CABR Affordable Learning Initiative, this endeavor also includes the awarding of grants for faculty to explore cost-free course materials and to adopt or curate such resources for their courses. His work on Open Access materials is essential to increasing access to scholarship for communities underrepresented in traditional, often exclusionary, publishing models. An active participant in CASAA Communities of Practice and a member of the CABR 2.0 Committee, Jon Drucker is an exemplary leader. Thank you for your dedication to ensuring that education is not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it but a right accessible to all. 

The CASAA Award for Excellence in Antiracist Education
This award is intended to recognize and celebrate the strong examples colleagues have provided for antiracist curricular infusion, for stimulating dialogue on issues of race and racism, and for their commitment to embodying antiracist principles/practices as they teach. As bell hooks once declared, “The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created.” By breaking down systemic and institutional barriers, revising their course curricula, and helping provide our community with the tools necessary to be agents of antiracist change, recipients of this award are working to build that paradise in the form of a more equitable world. 

Dr. Jill M. Pederson, associate professor in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is this year’s recipient of the CASAA Award for Excellence in Antiracist Education. Historically, art history curricula have centered European perspectives, in the process marginalizing the contributions of BIPOC artists. Pederson has been a steadfast advocate for art history curricula at Arcadia University that can provide our students a more diverse and representative understanding of artistic traditions. In her Global Baroque Art course, for instance, she has made concerted efforts to build a necessary bridge to the unseen and underrepresented by incorporating studies across Latin America, Asia, and Africa to enable her students to “engage critically with the global significance” of Baroque art and its “enduring influence well into our own time.” Furthermore, Pederson has been determined to strengthen the University’s offerings in African-American art history, developing initial plans for a convening of art history faculty and leaders to identify pathways for diversifying the field. Thank you so much, Dr. Jill Pederson, for your dedication to antiracist curricular infusion and pedagogy and for your transformative leadership at the University and within the field.

The CASAA Award for Excellence in Antiracist Research
This award is intended to honor scholars whose work advocates for marginalized and minoritized communities while advancing the fight against racism through rigorous, transformative research. Recipients of this award ultimately strive to better understand systemic inequities in the United States and across the world and to develop frameworks for justice, equity, and liberation in their respective fields. They “act as if it were possible to radically transform the world,” as Angela Y. Davis demands, and they “do it all the time.” By conducting research that interrogates the roots of oppression while fostering critical dialogue that empowers marginalized communities, they advance work that can shape policies and build lasting change.

The inaugural recipient of the CASAA Award for Excellence in Antiracist Research is Dr. Comfort Z. Olorunsaiye, associate professor of Public Health. As a population health researcher, she is dedicated to understanding the impacts of sociocultural and economic inequities on maternal and child health outcomes. This has earned her a AY21-22 CASAA Microgrant for research on the disparities in COVID-19 vaccination rates among Black birthing people and the barriers to health promotion information, services, and resources as well as a supplemental CASAA microgrant the following year. In 2024, Olorunsaiye was awarded a three-year $385,936 National Institutes of Health (NIH) R15 grant for her project titled, “Developing and Testing a Measure of Sociocultural  Norms Related to Interpregnancy Intervals in African Immigrants in the U.S.” The study asserts that in comparison to individuals born in the United States, vulnerable immigrant populations are at higher risk of a shorter optimal interpregnancy interval, the risk factors of which are not well understood. The project embodies principles of antiracist research as it seeks to prioritize health needs of marginalized populations while also ensuring the lived experiences of people of color are not just heard but incorporated into the development of more “culturally acceptable and clinically relevant interventions.” Thank you, Dr. Olorunsaiye, for leading change with this much-needed research.

The CASAA Champion of Justice Award
This award is intended to honor our colleagues at Arcadia who consistently help to break barriers and to promote justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as guiding principles in all that we do. As George Dei, Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, once said, “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists; it is making a new space, a better space for everyone.” The recipients of this award are recognized for their work in creating those much-needed spaces in which members of our community can thrive through active reflection, celebrating and embracing our cultural differences, and asking the difficult questions that we must ask ourselves if we truly want to be agents of change in the world. 

Kay Kalenga-Greene, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Success, is the first recipient of the CASAA Champion of Justice Award this year. Each semester, she demonstrates her unwavering dedication to creating a welcoming and supportive learning community for Arcadia students by meeting with students and engaging in critical outreach to prioritize their academic success. For so many students, the college experience can be filled with challenges both daunting as well as exciting, but through her guidance, she ensures that no student has to face these challenges on their own. This extends beyond just providing individualized support, mentorship, and resources that can help them navigate their academic journeys with a sense of confidence and resilience; she also fosters a deep sense of belonging for each student under her care, fostering an Arcadia in which all students can be heard, valued, and seen. While Kalenga-Greene is a true champion of justice for ensuring that every student can thrive, succeed, and contribute to the University community, she is also an AEDI Liaison, serving as an essential advocate on our campus job searches and helping trace Arcadia’s progress and challenges in achieving our access, equity, diversity, and inclusion goals. Thank you, Kay Kalenga-Greene for your stellar service and your commitment to making Arcadia the best we can be. 

Dr. Keisha M. Robinson, adjunct faculty and the Mentorship Director of the Social Action and Justice Education (SAJE) Fellowship Program, is the second recipient of the CASAA Champion of Justice Award this year. Her work is a powerful example of her commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and to the dismantling of barriers to educational success for students of color. Through the SAJE Program, she provides intensive mentorship and access to professional development opportunities to BIPOC students pursuing careers in education–work that helps to address the critical underrepresentation of BIPOC educators in the K-12 school system and to empower SAJE fellows with the tools, resources, and guidance to thrive in the field. Robinson is also the innovator of the Scholar 2 Scholar Mentorship Initiative, which allows students in the School of Education and beyond to connect with educational leaders of color who can offer their expertise and lived experiences to guide this next generation of teachers. In support of this vital endeavor, she was awarded an AY23-24 CASAA microgrant and an extension grant this year to help amplify these voices and support her own professional development. Thank you, Dr. Keisha M. Robinson, for actively creating pathways for BIPOC educators to succeed and for advocating for students of diverse communities. 

Congratulations to this year’s award recipients and to the many other staff, faculty, and leaders across the University who are making a real difference. 

To learn more about the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) and its work, visit www.arcadia.edu/casaa.