Tabatha Jones Jolivet, Ph.D.
Tabatha Jones Jolivet, Ph.D.
Abolitionist Organizer, Educator, Minister, and Community Engaged Scholar
Associate Professor of Higher Education, Azusa Pacific University
Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet, Ph.D. (she/her) is an abolitionist organizer, educator, minister, and community-engaged scholar whose praxis of “love, study, and struggle” is rooted in Black radical tradition and prophetic spirituality. She is a student and practitioner of Womanist worldmaking, Black women’s grassroots organizing, and Black freedom struggle. As a collectivist, she strives to upend oppressive ideologies, systems, and social institutions while nurturing liberatory and life-affirming conditions for flourishing. She holds a PhD in Education from Claremont Graduate University, a member of the Claremont Colleges, in Claremont, California. Currently, she is an associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches doctoral-level courses on equity and social justice, leading change, spirituality of leadership, research inquiry, and qualitative research methodologies. She specializes in the intersectional study of cultures and systems of domination; equity and social justice; abolitionist and liberatory pedagogies; sacred resistance and social movements; and building life-affirming institutions and societies. She is the founder and convener of the Womanist & Black Feminist Abolition Collective, a research consortium that incubates creative intellectual projects that cultivate womanist, Black feminist, and abolitionist ideas, dreams, visions, theories, and praxis. She brings 30 years of extensive leadership experience ranging from grassroots community organizing to senior-level university leadership. As a public intellectual, she co-leads several community-based, critical participatory action research projects while practicing sustained, nonviolent direct action and protest as an organizer with Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Clergy 4 Black Lives, and the People’s Budget Los Angeles Coalition. A founding board member of Abolitionist Sanctuary, an organization devoted to training civic and faith leaders in the work of
abolition, she presently serves as an advisory board member. She is the co-author of White Jesus: The Architecture of Racism in Religion and Education (Peter Lang, 2018) and a regular media guest, speaker, consultant, and trainer in a variety of local, national, and international contexts, such as community meetings and forums, grassroots organizations, civic and spiritual organizations, colleges and universities, schools, academic conferences, nonprofit organizations, public meetings, rallies, protests, and policy environments.
Anne Mitchell
Anne Mitchell
Senior Director of Strategic Operations/Initiatives
Indiana University Human Resources
Anne Mitchell (she/her) is the senior director of human resources for the IU Indianapolis (soon to be IU Indianapolis), IUFW, and IUPUC campuses. In that role, she creates and implements the human capital strategy for the campuses, in conjunction with the larger institution. She has previously served as the senior director for strategic operations for IU Human Resources (leading customer care, transaction services, decision support, DEI strategy, and operational effectiveness), the director of the Office of Equal Opportunity (serving as the affirmative action officer, equity official and title IX deputy for Indianapolis), and director of survey research and assessment for Institutional Research and Decision Support (creating and implementing strategy around IU Indianapolis’s climate survey, staff and faculty surveys, employee exit surveys, and program reviews). She has presented and published in the area of DEI – and is a proud graduate of Purdue University and Ohio State University. She has worked on the Indianapolis campus for 16 years.o State University. She has worked on the Indianapolis campus for 16 years.
Vicky Hidalgo
Vicky Hidalgo
Head of Early in Career Talent at Nordstrom
Vicky Hidalgo is a dynamic leader and results-driven strategist with nearly 15 years of experience recruiting and shaping talent cohorts in academic and corporate settings. At Nordstrom, Hidalgo oversees the company’s early-in-career recruiting strategies and development programs, including apprenticeships, internships, internal bridges, and full-time programs. She and her team provide strategic guidance to all business units across the enterprise, serving as a trusted consultant to diversify the talent pipeline through early-talent acquisition and employee retention. Hidalgo is a champion for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging who believes in promoting self-reflection, active learning, and actionable commitments to create positive change. Her leadership approach centers on communicating in a way that resonates with others and builds trust. She is passionate about helping others maximize their strengths and empowering people and organizations to achieve meaningful outcomes. Hidalgo holds a bachelor’s degree from Gustavus Adolphus College, a master’s degree from Minnesota State University, and is a graduate of McKinsey Business Academy’s Management Accelerator Program. In her spare time, she enjoys serving as a board member for Camp Odayin: a camp for young people with heart disease, spending time outdoors with her wife, Abby, and re-discovering the world with her twin toddlers, Río and Remy.
Karrah Herring, J.D.
Karrah Herring, J.D.
Indiana's Chief Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunity Officer
Karrah (Miller) Herring is a native and resident of South Bend, Indiana, and a proud South Bend Community School Corporation graduate. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communications/Public Relations from Purdue University (’05) and her Juris Doctorate from Valparaiso University School of Law (’11). On November 19, 2020, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced his appointment of Herring to his cabinet as Indiana’s first-ever Chief Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunity Officer for the state. In this role, she works with the governor and his team to improve state government operations and remove hurdles in the government workplace and services the state provides. During the foundational phase of the office, Herring engaged with over 300 stakeholders, built the infrastructure of the office, and in conjunction with other agencies rolled out the state of Indiana's first-ever Equity Data Portal. Her team focuses on growing statewide access and opportunity in education and economic development and enhancing employee experiences within the Indiana state government’s executive branch.
Before joining Governor Holcomb's team, Herring worked for the University of Notre Dame for nearly a decade and was the director of public affairs in the Office of Public Affairs and Communications. Before her role with public affairs, she served on the University of Notre Dame’s Office of Human Resources Senior Executive Leadership team as the director of the Office of Institutional Equity and University Title IX Coordinator.
Herring has received several awards and recognition and serves on various boards and commissions. Most recently, Mayor James Mueller of the City of South Bend, Indiana, honored her with the “Key to the City.” Her alma mater, Purdue University, honored her as a 2022 College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Alumna. She was named to the Indianapolis Business Journal’s prestigious 2022 Forty Leaders under 40 list and its inaugural 250 most influential leaders 2022. In 2021, the South Bend Regional Chamber named her their 2021 Woman of Influence. In October of 2021, the chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, Justice Rush, asked Herring to serve as the executive branch’s representative on the Indiana Supreme Court’s Commission on Equity and Access within Indiana Courts. She served on the commission and chaired the subcommittee within the commission, which examined pathways to the legal profession’s bench and bar for historically underrepresented groups. Herring is also a member of the Center for Digital Government’s Digital Equity Advisory Committee, the NASHP Population and Public Health Steering Committee, a member of the Board of Governors for the Indiana Economic Club, and a member of the Board of Directors for Sunz Insurance and Sunz Holdings LLC (Bradenton, Florida).
