SJSU
Dr. Kathleen Wong(Lau)Dr. Kathleen Wong(Lau) has been appointed as SJSU’s chief diversity officer. Wong(Lau) will lead the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, providing vision and direction for university-wide efforts to ensure a welcoming, safe climate for every member of our community and serving as a liaison to community partners and constituents on a wide array of diversity initiatives. She was selected by and will report directly to President Papazian, and will serve on the president’s cabinet. Wong(Lau) will join our community on July 25.
Wong(Lau) joins SJSU from the University of Oklahoma where she has served since 2014 as director of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies and the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE). Her noteworthy accomplishments at Oklahoma included launching faculty training institutes on inclusive teaching, and administrator training on management and leadership for diversity and innovation. In addition, she designed and led an inaugural, mandatory, five-hour Freshmen Diversity Experience training for more than 5,000 students. She also consulted with other academic institutions, with an emphasis on helping faculty and staff support underrepresented and first generation students.
Earlier in her career, Wong(Lau) served as a tutor and advisor for Upward Bound and as a bilingual education counselor for the TRIO program, where she encountered and directly addressed the challenges facing underrepresented groups in higher education. She also served as an assistant professor of intercultural communication at Western Michigan University from 2005-2012, and has actively consulted with Michigan State University on diversity issues since 2012.
