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Division of Inclusive Excellence California State University, Sacramento

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Meet the Vice President for Inclusive Excellence

Dr. Mia Settles-Tidwell is an African American woman smiling, wearing a green and blue striped dress with curly natural hair.

Dr. Settles-Tidwell

Dr. Mia Settles-Tidwell (she/her) is the Vice President for Inclusive Excellence and University Diversity Officer at Sacramento State. She holds an earned Master and Ed.D. in Educational Leadership for Social Justice from CSU East Bay and an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. Mia is Sac State’s second permanent VP for Inclusive Excellence and University Diversity Officer. Known for her equity and activism work for underserved and disenfranchised communities, she has over 30 yrs. of leadership experience in both K-12 and higher education systems.

The Vice President for Inclusive Excellence inspires and leads the campus’ efforts to transform the campus into an antiracism, equity-centered, inclusive, and healing university. The division is comprised of Vice President Immediate Operations Office, Office for Equal Opportunity, Disability Justice Services, Belonging Education Support, Faculty Diversity and Inclusion, and Inclusive Excellence Learning. These programs provide a holistic, proactive, and preventative set of services to the entire campus community. Under Dr. Settles-Tidwell’s leadership, Sac State will go beyond the values of antiracism, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into actionable embedded practice and equity-centered outcomes. Her goal is to lead the campus to implement this through a lens of "Believing" (year 1), "Becoming" (years 2-3), and "Being" (years 4-5) to transform CSUS into a national leader and thought partner in this field of work.

Dr. Settles-Tidwell describes herself as an At the Table Activist. She has dedicated over 30 years of her life to the work of educational equity in the Oakland Unified School District, as a teacher, principal, associate superintendent, and chief operating officer. She then became assistant vice chancellor and chief of staff in the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley where she curated and led the Disability Strategy Team, served on the campus’ Joint Budget Committee, and consulted on multiple diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. She also co-led the development of the Black Leaders’ Collective and the CAO Leading for Equity group.

She co-authored several campus reports including the Undergraduate Diversity Student Project on Campus Experience, Chancellor’s Task Force on Becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution, and the 2019 - 2020 Independent Advisory Board on Police Accountability and Community Safety. Dr. Settles-Tidwell also co-developed toolkits to address the changing landscape of higher education during COVID-19 including Creating a Healthy Virtual Campus Environment, Return to Campus with Equity, Equity-based Budgeting, and An Equity Lens on Recovery Management.

Dr. Settles-Tidwell has a record of challenging institutions to examine inequitable practices and has extensive experience removing barriers that impede success for students, staff, and faculty. She is student-centric, community based, collegial, a listener, an innovator, and just what our Hornet Family needs at this time.