COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. A career educator and administrator with more than a decade of experience in assisting colleges with the diversification of their workforces will hold a new position at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Betty Trout-Kelly, executive to the president for institutional diversity and equity, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, will become executive director for academic diversity and social equity at UCCS effective Aug. 15.
Rogers Redding, vice chancellor, Academic Affairs, announced Trout-Kelly’s appointment.
“Dr. Trout-Kelly was chosen following a national search that attracted a number of outstanding candidates,” Redding said. “I am pleased that she will be joining UCCS and assisting us in the area of recruitment of minority faculty and various legal compliance issues.”
A member of the Bowdoin president’s staff since 1993, Trout-Kelly served as a senior advisor as well as the campus affirmative action officer and coordinator of the Mellon Mays Scholars program. She also has served as a clinical counselor and multicultural consultant and as a lecturer on race relations. Previously, she directed several programs at Wichita (Kan.) State University and spent 11 years as a secondary and vocational school teacher and college instructor.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Okla., a master’s from Wichita State University and a PhD. from Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio.
As the executive director for academic diversity, Trout-Kelly will direct efforts to increase faculty diversity through recruitment and retention programs. This will include developing a search database for faculty employment searches, supporting search committees in recruiting and hiring diverse candidates, expanding resources for and managing the Opportunity Hire program, and collaborating with the Faculty Minority Affairs committee and with the Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies programs. As social equity officer, she will promote the diversification of staff and will form and oversee a campus wide diversity advisory board which will represent all campus diversity efforts. She will assist legal counsel with sexual harassment and discrimination investigations and with affirmative action compliance. She will also teach on campus.
“It (UCCS) is indeed a place that I feel is ready to move ahead in making itself a more pluralistic campus,” Trout-Kelly said. “I feel that my work as a diversity officer can assist with this important institutional endeavor.”
UCCS, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The university offers 25 bachelor’s degrees, 17 master’s and two doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls about 7,800 students annually.