Ralina Joseph named UCLA’s vice provost for inclusive excellence

Ralina L. Joseph, a university professor, educator, administrator and advocate whose work focuses on issues of equity, access and belonging in higher education and beyond, has been named UCLA's new vice provost for inclusive excellence. She will begin her tenure by Sept. 1.

A member of the faculty at the University of Washington's Seattle campus since 2005, Joseph is currently associate dean for equity and justice for graduate schools across the university's three campuses and is founding director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equityand Presidential Term Professor of Communication. She is also an affiliate professor of American ethnic studies and of gender, women and sexuality studies.

In her new role at UCLA, Joseph will head the Office of Inclusive Excellence,where her responsibilities will include coordination of campuswide inclusive excellence initiatives, with a focus on campus climate issues, education and research, faculty recruitment and retention, strategic planning, training, community relations, policy development, communications, and fundraising.

Joseph, who received her master's and doctoral degrees in ethnic studies from UC San Diego after earning a bachelor's in American civilization from Brown University, said she was eager to advance UCLA's mission of putting inclusive values into action.

"I am deeply honored to serve as UCLA's vice provost at this pivotal moment in our history," she said. "I was drawn to this position because of UCLA's deep commitment to fostering a culture of inclusivity, belonging and engagement and its dedicated faculty, students and staff who are helping to uplift those values each day. I look forward to connecting with UCLA's community in dialogue, to amplifying the good work happening on campus and to building new initiatives of inclusive excellence together.

"I can think of no better university and city to grow the work of increasing access and belonging for all," she added.

Joseph's work toward building a more equitable world

Through her community-engaged scholarship, teaching and work as an administrator, Joseph has probed questions of how inequalities are perpetuated through both mediated and interpersonal interactions, and she has helped answer these questions by developing tangible tools that positively impact the world.

As director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity, she has led research collaborations, networking efforts, action-oriented classes, mentorship programs and community events designed to inspire critical thinking about race and its intersections and to more equitably reshape the world. Under her leadership, center-led programs have brought together students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members to engage in changemaking dialogue about equity and identityand have spawned a traveling museum exhibitionaddressing these issues.

And as associate dean at the University of Washington since 2020, Joseph has spearheaded equity and justice efforts on behalf of 17,000 graduate students, including leading the design of research-informed guides, toolkits and other valuable resources for graduate student units and departments. Her monthly Excellence in Graduate Education seriesand comprehensive Excellence in Graduate Education toolhave provided administrators faculty, staff and students with innovative, data-driven guidance on achieving equitable access, representation and success in graduate studies, starting from students' pre-graduate school preparation through to their post-graduate careers.

An award-winning author and professor

A widely respected scholar of race, racism, gender and class, Joseph is the author of several books, including the forthcoming "Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI" (2025), "Postracial Resistance: Black Women, Media, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity"(2018) and "Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial"(2013) and is the co-author of "Generation Mixed Goes to School: Radically Listening to Multiracial Kids"(2021). She has also written numerous articles and peer-reviewed book chapters.

Among her many awards and honors, she has received the APEX Award for Publication Excellence, the Delta Kappa Gamma Educators Book Award, the Outstanding Book of the Year award from the International Communication Association, an ACLS/Mellon Scholars and Society Fellowship, and the Silver Award for Diversity Programs from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. At the University of Washington, she has been recognized with an array of honors for her leadership, mentorship, scholarship and service.

"Chancellor Frenk and I recognize that this position is of paramount importance and significance to our campus community and look forward to partnering with Vice Provost Joseph and with all of you in the vital work of putting UCLA's principles into practice," Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt wrote in a message to campus.

Joseph will succeed Mitchell Chang, UCLA's interim vice provost for equity, diversity and inclusion since July 2023. Chang, a UCLA professor of education and Asian American studies, will return to research and teaching this summer.