David Varel
David Varel, Ph.D., is an affiliate professor in the Department of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Topic: Social Justice
Wilfredo Alvarez
Wilfredo Alvarez, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Jasmine Harris
Jasmine Harris, Ph.D. is a professor and Chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Manuel Del Real
Manuel Del Real, Ph.D., serves as the Executive Director of Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives and Inclusion at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include HSI/Minority Serving Institutions, diversity, equity & inclusion, Greek-letter organizations, civic engagement, Title V grants, and National Science Foundation grants. His professional focus is centered around culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum.
Del Real is the assistant vice president of membership for The Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators. He is also the co-founder of the Colorado HSI Consortium and is the current president of the Colorado Coalition for the Educational Advancement of Latinxs. He has presented at a panel at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) conference and facilitated the 2021 Sigma Lambda Betas International Fraternity Inc.’s Virtual Leadership Institute.
Before joining MSU Denver, Del Real was an adjunct faculty member in Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University.
Del Real earned his Doctorate in Education with a focus on higher education and social justice from Iowa State University, Master of Arts in higher education with a focus on diversity in organizations and Bachelor of Arts in French, Psychology, and Spanish from the University of Denver.
Rashad Anderson
Rashad Anderson, Ph.D., serves as an associate professor in the School of Education, and Director of the Call Me MiSTER Program at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Devon Wright
Devon Wright, Ph.D., is an associate 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 affiliate professor in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Sheldon Steinhauser
Jessica Ritter
Jessica Ritter, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Her career as a social worker and academic has been dedicated to child welfare and children’s rights as well as political advocacy related to issues of social and economic justice. Ritter has been teaching social work at the college level for 13 years.
She is a Fulbright scholar and is the author of two books—101 Careers in Social Work, 2nd ed. (2015) and Social Work Policy Practice: Changing our Community, Nation, and the World (2nd edition is In Press).
Ritter received her doctorate, master of social work and bachelor of social work from University of Texas, Austin.
Katherine Miller
Katherine Miller, M.A., is an affiliate professor in the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy at Metropolitan State University of Denver.