COE's Richardson named an ACE Fellow

	Tina Richardson was nominated for the ACE Fellow position by Lehigh President Alice P. Gast.

The College of Education’s Tina Richardson is one of only 42 senior faculty and administrators from across the United States to have been chosen as an American Council of Education (ACE) 2009-2010 Fellow.
Richardson, a Fulbright Scholar and program coordinator for counseling psychology, was nominated for the position by Lehigh President Alice P. Gast.
“Dr. Richardson is a faculty leader and a strong proponent of accessibility, diversity, and internationalism,” says Gast. “The Fellowship will provide valuable experience to Tina and enable her to use her leadership skills in broader context and to expand her roles as a practitioner, a teacher, and a researcher.”
Established in 1965, the ACE Fellows Program focuses on identifying and preparing senior leadership for the nation’s colleges and universities. Of those who have participated in the first 44 years of the program, more than 300 Fellows have gone on to serve as chief executive officers of colleges and universities. Another 1,100 have served as provosts, vice presidents, or deans.
“We’re extremely pleased with the incoming class,” says Sharon A. McDade, director of the ACE Fellows Program. “The individuals selected have demonstrated strong leadership. The Fellows Program will sharpen and enhance their leadership skills, expand their networks and prepare them to address issues of concern to the higher education community.”
Since joining the Lehigh community in 1991, Richardson has built a national reputation for her expertise in racial identity and multicultural competence. She is the secretary for the Division of Counseling Psychology at the American Psychological Association, and her research interests, which include minority student development and bullying behavior in schools, have been published in such leading international outlets as School Psychology Journal and The Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development.
Richardson has dedicated part of her career to teaching students, K-12 teachers and college educators across Pennsylvania about Africa. She had led several study abroad trips and Fulbright Hayes scholars to Ghana, West Africa. Last year, she helped launch a partnership with the University of Liberia on a USAID-funded grant titled, “Teacher Training, Child Development and Recovery from War.”
A tremendous opportunity
“The ACE Fellow Program will provide a tremendous opportunity for me to grow as educational leader and to determine how I might better contribute to higher education,” says Richardson.
She has extensive experience consulting, and has researched and co-authored reports for the U.S. Department of Justice on its Community Oriented Policing in Schools (COPS) program and Keeping Our Kids Safe Initiative. Richardson is also regarded for her insight into the psychology of ethnically-diverse communities, having recently assessed the cultural dynamics of dangerous schools in the Philadelphia School District and youth gang activity for the City of Allentown.
The ACE Fellows Program combines seminars, interactive learning opportunities, campus visits, and placement at another higher education institution to condense years of on-the-job experience and skills development into a single semester or year.
It is not currently known at which institution Richardson will pursue her fellowship; however, upon her return to Lehigh, she anticipates having an opportunity to work with Gast and Mohamed El-Aasser, provost and vice president for academic affairs, on Lehigh’s international initiatives, “an area where I’d like to make significant professional contributions,” she says.
Richardson becomes the fourth individual from Lehigh in the past 15 years to have been accepted into the ACE Fellows Program. Previous Fellows include Neal Simon, professor of behavioral neuroscience; Henry Odi, executive director of academic outreach and special projects at Lehigh; and Mark Erickson, president of Wittenberg University, who previously served as vice president for administrative and governmental affairs at Lehigh.
“The Fellows Program will prove me with an excellent opportunity to build on my previous experiences and develop into leader who can address the range of social and political issues impacting higher education,” says Richardson. “It is a real honor to be a member of the 2009-2010 class and join such a distinguished network!”
--Tom Yencho