UNL is committed to creating and maintaining an environment where people from all backgrounds can engage, challenge and support one another. Its experts include scholars who have studied the cultural and historical effects of race and ethnicity throughout the world, as well as administrators who create and maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all students.
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Jake Kirkland coordinates diversity programming for the Office of Student Affairs. He also oversees the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center and the Office of Academic Success and Intercultural Services. He holds a bachelor’s of education from Chadron State College and a master’s in counseling psychology and a doctorate in adult education from UNL. He is a past winner of the Spirit of Nebraska Award, a Kudos Award from the NU Board of Regents, the MLK Fulfilling the Dream Award and the James V. Griesen Exemplary Service to Students Award.
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Amelia María de la Luz Montes is an Americanist scholar and fiction writer who is interested in narrative contexts that complicate and contradict national, social, and personal identities. Her geographic focus encompasses North America and Latin America. She has published several articles on the nineteenth-century Mexican American author, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and has recently edited and introduced a new edition of Ruiz de Burton’s first novel, Who Would Have Thought It? (Penguin Classics, 2009).
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Anna Williams Shavers is the Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Law and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion. Professor Shavers teaches Administrative Law; Immigration Law; Forced Migration (including Human Trafficking); International Gender Issues; and Gender, Race and Class. She has previously served as Interim Dean and Associate Dean of the College of Law. Her primary interest is the area of immigration and its intersection with gender issues. She has served as a Board Member of the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, Inc., Co-Chair of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking Planning Team. She is a frequent national and international presenter on immigration, human trafficking and administrative law issues.
Bio
Willis-Esqueda studies the effects of race and ethnicity, with bias and issues of assimilation and acculturation a part of the mix. She teaches a class on the psychology of immigration, which touches upon all aspects of immigration and acculturation.