When he was first asked to educate people on Islamophobia, DEI expert Dr. Amer F. Ahmed – a scholar of South Asian descent with multiple Black studies degrees to his name – was worried he would get “pigeon-holed.” But after he began teaching about the issue, he gradually changed his mind.
Dr. Amer F. Ahmed
“Once I did start giving those presentations, I was shocked and concerned at the degree to the lack of context and information that a lot of my colleagues had about my community,” said Ahmed said. “So I started to make more of an effort to educate my colleagues, my field, [and] the general public on the ways in which Islamophobia was functioning and operating in our society and even my own personal experience related to that."
Ahmed – who is vice provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Vermont – has been working in the field of diversity for over 20 years, educating, consulting, and training people about DEI matters, mostly focused on higher ed.
With family originally from India, Ahmed was raised Muslim, an upbringing and background that he said gave him a unique lens into his later field.
“At every stage of my career, I was essentially the first identifiably Muslim person to get to the kind of position that I was getting to,” Ahmed said. “So I didn't have a lot of examples in front of me – if any – of people of my background getting to where I got to in the field."
The senior diversity officer holds an Ed.D. in adult and higher education from the University of South Dakota Vermillion; an M.A. in Afro-American and African diaspora studies and anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington; and a B.A. in anthropology and Black world studies from Miami University in Ohio.
Ahmed said that he came into the diversity field after working with students and he wanted to be part of the ongoing effort to address insufficient equity and inclusion at many Predominantly White iIstitutions (PWIs). He also co-owns a module-based DEI training product for faculty, staff, and students.
