WENDI WILLIAMS, PHD, JOINS FIELDING AS PROVOST AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Fielding has a new addition to its leadership team.

In October 2022, Wendi Williams, PhD, joined Fielding as the Provost and Senior Vice President, bringing with her two decades of academic and administrative experience.

Provost Williams applies her work as a psychologist, advocate, and educator at the intersection of education and psychology to her scholarship and leadership praxis. Previously, she was the Dean of the School of Education at Mills College and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Bank Street College, Graduate School of Education. In these positions, she cultivated equitable contexts for students, staff, and faculty development while attending to structural and cultural change to support important curricular and program development.

The first few months of her tenure were spent on a listening tour, where she learned the inner and outer workings of the university. During that time, Provost Williams began forming goals as provost and for Fielding in general.

“I think that this community is ready for really deep, transformative equity work,” Provost Williams said. “As an educational leader, I have had a number of opportunities that have appeared to be ready for that, but I might have been the only one or one of a few people in the position to do that work. At Fielding, I join a group of active, engaged, intellectually vibrant colleagues who are justice-minded, and I love it! I want to be in a space pushing forward an agenda we all can not only be proud of, but serves as a model for other human development organizations and institutions.”

With myriad thoughts and goals, she wants to ensure that she is helping Fielding meet the moment of pressing issues and needs. Specifically, she wants to work toward addressing the overall Fielding experience with equity and access, health and wellness, and more.

“What I find important and useful is that I’m entering on the momentum of a very strong legacy,” Provost Williams said. “That stands out to me as an incredible resource that we have as an institution and that I have as a provost. There’s a lot of potential to expand on the work Fielding has always done in the fields of psychology, leadership, human development, and other areas in this very interesting moment in our society. I think there’s this way in which Fielding is uniquely positioned to speak to some of the most pressing issues and areas of required transformation for our world — at home and abroad.

“The hope is to, even more, bring the outside world in more deeply into the teaching and learning experience and have it influence our curricula, our pedagogical practices, and our ways of thinking of what it means to be a learning community not only for this moment, but the futures we are building together,” she continued. “To cultivate an intellectual life that feels robust and engaging, it must happen inside the classroom but also outside the classroom. I’m excited about the ways in which we can engage students, alums, and faculty in some of the most pressing issues of the day and help our public understand the ways that our areas of practice and scholarly expertise are vital for our shared future as a global learning community.”

A pivotal, life-altering moment happened when she decided to take a higher-education administration position. As a tenured faculty member, researcher, and writer, she was used to higher-education work. What she wasn’t prepared for was how she would change in leadership roles.

“I got hooked, and I didn’t realize that would happen,” Provost Williams said. “As can be true for many, I had the limiting belief that leadership was about being in charge and having ambition for that, but once in the seat I experienced the power of leadership to create and cultivate conditions for access, opportunity, and excellence for our students, for our faculty, and for our institution as a whole, and that was huge for me.”

Since then, Provost Williams began reimagining leadership schools of thought and how things were always done, both as an individual and in partnership with others.

The heart of Provost Williams’s work is centered on societal challenges that can be enriched by diverse women’s unique perspectives and approaches to leadership. Her recently published work is WE Matter!: Intersectional Anti-Racist Feminist Interventions with Black Girls and Women, and forthcoming books, Black Women at Work: On Refusal and Recovery and The Majestic Place: The Freedom Possible in Black Women’s Leadership. She also created the “She Been Ready! The Podcast,” where she hosts conversations centered on elevating Black women’s liberatory leadership praxis through their stories of leadership and life.

“The practices of Black women as leaders isn’t as widely known and held up,” Provost Williams said. “So, I thought, ‘Let’s talk to women who are leaders. Let’s talk to folks who have an opinion and experience with Black women in leadership and Black women in general.’ To be honest, it’s become a much more diverse space because, like for all leaders, when it is happening well, Black women are not leading in isolation.”

Provost Williams expressed her excitement to continue to delve into data, both in the forms of numbers and in conversation with others. She wants to help the Fielding community explore its potential while also keeping some of our most human characteristics in mind.

“I have been a very busy student and professional,” she said. “I come from a working-class background, so I have this perspective that you must work hard. What I also know from an academic and intellectual perspective is that you do need time to rest, think, imagine, and be creative without a goal in mind to get to the next thing we are hoping for in our future. So, I want to use this platform and position to create some of that space for our students, faculty, and staff to ensure we have the structures that afford us the space to think more expansively about our work and to engage in ways that make more room for us to stretch out a bit more into our humanity.”

Although she has reached high levels of success, both personally and collaboratively with others, she considers herself just as much of a learner as she is a leader.

“I have been learning more and more just how precious it is to listen,” Provost Williams said. “I know it’s simple, but I’ve been trying to listen deeply. Part of it is listening to myself before I can listen to others. So, there’s a lot of work I do around somatics and embodiment to ensure I connect with my own personhood and physicality so I can truly be present when I’m with others. I am in awe of how much more I can hear from and connect with others when I am fully present. It’s meant the world for leadership practice and just overall personal life practice.”

Away from her professional life, Provost Williams is an avid bibliophile, with self-professed stacks of books especially fiction throughout her home. She is also known as “Auntie Wendi” to her nieces, nephew, and godsons, a role that she holds in the highest esteem.