Devon Wright

Devon Wright, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies and the Department of Sociology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include Black social movements, conservative right-wing social movements, white-supremacist ideology and racist rhetoric in conservative right-wing media organizations and the politics of hip-hop culture. Wright currently teaches Politics and Black People, Social Movements and the Black Experience, and Black Lives Matter and COVID-19.

Prior to joining MSU Denver, Wright taught as a social-sciences instructor at Fort Lauderdale High School. Wright has been asked to speak on various topics, including the history of black social-protest movements, the Black Lives Matter Movement, white-supremacist hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the segregationist Citizen’s Councils of America and hip-hop culture.

He received his doctorate in Sociology and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in History, all from Florida International University.

JaLisa Williams

JaLisa Williams is an adjunct professor in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include mindfulness interventions for race-based trauma, black generational healing, yoga, social justice and radical pedagogies.

Williams joined MSU Denver in 2019, first as an affiliate professor and taught a variety of courses in the BSSW and MSW program. Her classes taught included creative approach to change, gender and social work as well as power, privilege and oppression. Williams also served as an affiliate professor for Regis University where she developed two innovative curriculums under the Integrative Core Department.

She is the owner for Soulflower Experiences, which is a community-based mindfulness business teaching workshops, yoga and meditation classes. She also worked as a yoga therapist and counselor for The Center for Trauma and Resilience. There she provided short term counseling for individuals who have experienced crime in Denver, provided crisis intervention and client advocacy as well as presented and co-facilitated classes for the Befriending the Body yoga program.

Williams was a violence prevention program coordinator where she led, created and facilitated programing around interpersonal violence, healthy relationships, and violence against women and gender fluid individuals. Williams received her bachelor’s in kinesiology and exercise science in 2013 and her master’s in social work in 2016 from the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Tara Tull

Tara Tull, M.S., is an emeritus professor and former chair in the Department of Human Services and Counseling at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She joined MSU Denver in 1990 as coordinator of Women’s Services and was named associate director of the Institute of Women’s Studies and Services in 1996, a position she held for 14 years. Tull served as an assistant dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and co-wrote the proposal to create what’s now known as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services on campus, which is celebrating its 25th year in 2018. Additionally, she helped create the Scholarship Center and the Students to Watch awards program, which recognizes students who have overcome major obstacles to get an education.

Tull is trained as a mediator and gives presentation on a variety of issues relating to conflict. She is involved with the statewide Women of Color Conference and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Breakfast, helped establish the LGBTQ Student Services Office on the Auraria Campus and has advocated for physical accessibility to the National Historic Register houses on campus. Tull is committed to social justice education with emphasis on gender, sexual identity and multicultural awareness.

She received her master’s in women’s studies from Minnesota State University, Mankato and a bachelor’s in women’s studies from University of Colorado, Boulder.

Anna Ropp

Anna Ropp teaches Introduction to Statistics for Social and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology of Group Prejudice and Multicultural Psychology.

Ropp has taught at Metropolitan State University Denver since 2010.

Her current research interests include students’ perception of the campus and classroom environment for LGBTQ individuals as well as individuals’ responses to discrimination. Ropp also is currently researching weight prejudice.

Adriana Nieto

Adriana Nieto, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been with the university for over 15 years, first starting out as an adjunct professor and then becoming a full-time faculty member in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include Latina spiritualities and practices; women of color feminisms; mental health among Xicanas in early 20th Century New Mexico; Chicana protestants in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands; oral history and water in the ‘West’, with special interest in acequia culture and practices in southern Colorado.

Nieto received her Ph.D. in religious and theological studies form the University of Denver Iliff School of Theology, her master’s in Latin American studies with a focus on gender studies and borderland history from the University of New Mexico and her bachelor’s in Latin American and women studies also from the University of New Mexico.

Chalane E. Lechuga

Chalane E. Lechuga, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her concentrations are in race/ethnicity and education, with an emphasis in Latina/o sociology.

Lechuga’s research examines the racial identities of Latina/o high school students and the relationship between racial identity and academic achievement. Currently, she is working with a local public-school district to examine school discipline and racial disparities in exclusionary practices. Further up the educational pipeline, she researches the recruitment and retention of underrepresented faculty in higher education. Lechuga has over 19 years of experience conducting program evaluation and assessment and leads the comprehensive assessment of departmental student learning outcomes.

Lechuga received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Mexico, a master’s of science in sociology from the University of Denver and a bachelor’s in English and ethnic studies (Chicana/o studies and black studies) from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Jonathan Kent

Jonathan Kent, Ph.D., is retired professor of Anthropology at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he has taught since 1986. He has an ongoing archaeological field project in Colorado and is analyzing data obtained while conducting field research in Peru. He curates the MSU Denver Seed Collection, the Comparative Osteology Collection, and the Ashton Ethnographic Collection.

He is the Founder and Co-Director of the Laboratory of Anthropology. He was the Founder and first faculty advisor of the student anthropology club, ALPACA. He is a three-time awardee of Fulbright-Hays Fellowships. He has been named Outstanding Faculty Researcher by Golden Key Honor Society, has been named as the President’s Outstanding Teacher, and has won the college’s Distinguished Service Award. In addition to archaeological field schools, he teaches classroom courses in Archaeology, Introductory Physical Anthropology and Prehistory, World Prehistory, Human-Animal Relationships, Ancient American Civilizations and South American Archaeology.

Stacey Hervey

Stacey Hervey, MSSc, is an associate professor in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She specializes in school safety, extremism, hate crimes/group violence and issues affecting juveniles.

Hervey has worked in Victim Services and spent a short time as a patrol officer before deciding to teach full time. She is a mayoral appointee to the City of Denver Crime Prevention and Control Commission and in 2009 received the FBI Director Leadership Award for her contributions to the community. Hervey has also received the Mile High Teacher Award and Distinguished Teacher Award. She is a member of the Rocky Mountain Association of Identification and has worked with Homeland Security and the Attorney General’s office to develop training resources for parents on internet safety and has presented throughout the United States.

In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses for Metropolitan State University of Denver, Hervey also teaches courses for University of Colorado at Colorado Springs with her primary role being a high school teacher for Denver Public Schools. She is most proud of her work advocating for marginalized communities and introducing law enforcement careers to underrepresented populations.

Hervey received a master of social science in Criminal Justice from University of Colorado Denver and bachelor of arts in Sociology and Deviance from University of Colorado Boulder. She also holds a Law Enforcement Certificate from Arapahoe Community College and a Teaching Certificate from Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Ramon Del Castillo

Ramon Del Castillo is a retired professor of the Chiana/or Studies Department. He taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver from 35 years.  Del Castillo’s publications include “Institutionalizing Curanderismo in Colorado’s Community Mental Health System,” “Institutionalizing Curanderismo into a Mainstream Healing System: Boundary Spanners and Innovation in Action” and “The Life History of Diana Velazquez: La Curandera Total.”
As past Chair of the Masters Program in Nonprofit Program at Regis University (1999-2005), he directed educational services and program development for the department and taught classes in the history of the nonprofit sector, leadership, ethics, managing diversity in organizations and the capstone project. He traveled to Mexico for 5 years, developing collaborative bi-national curricula between the nonprofit and civil society sectors through the “Making Connections in Mexico Program,” in collaboration with ITESO Jesuit University, located in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Del Castillo possess a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a double major in Sociology and Mexican American Studies from the University of Northern Colorado. He obtained master’s degrees are in Social Science and Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver (UCD) and his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the same university. His master’s research was on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Chicano Viet Nam Veterans and his doctoral dissertation, examined Curanderismo, a traditional approach to holistic and spiritual healing, using theories of innovation to critique the institutionalization process within a publicly funded mental health agency.

Andrea Borrego

Andrea Borrego, Ph.D., is the chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She worked as a graduate research assistant and faculty associate at Arizona State University before coming to teach at MSU Denver in 2015. Borrego is involved in many MSU Denver committees and is a member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology. She served as a panel chair on Media Reporting of Crime for the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Conference in 2016.

Borrego co-authored an article for The Criminologist: The Official Newsletter of the American Society of Criminology titled “The advantages and disadvantages of original data collection for doctoral students.” She also co-authored a chapter in Forensic Science and the Administration of Justice: Critical issues and directions, and has several other publications in the works. Her research focuses on fatal-police citizen encounters and LGBTQ victimization.

Borrego received her doctorate and masters in criminology and criminal justice from Arizona State University in 2015 and 2011 and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Notre Dame in 2009.

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