In August of 2012, Dr. Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh joined the University of Oregon as Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, with the responsibility for collaboratively leading the University of Oregon’s efforts to embed inclusion, equity and diversity in its institutional practices, policies, and norms. Her portfolio reaches broadly across many aspects of campus life, supporting the academic mission of the institution to ensure that students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds have an equal opportunity to access, as well as to thrive and, ultimately, to succeed at the University.
The Vice-President’s responsibility also includes engaging with a wide variety of communities external to the university, facilitating partnerships with the office toward those ends. As part of her portfolio, Yvette leads the university’s strategic diversity planning efforts, development of institutional policies, coordination of research and evaluation infrastructure for diversity work, coordination of pipeline programs and providing organizational leadership for the following campus entities: the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), the Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC), and the Center on Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE).
Prior to joining the University of Oregon in her current position, Yvette served as a tenured Professor of Political Science and a Dean at Indiana University in Bloomington. While there, she won outstanding research awards, secured national funding for her research projects, served as a Fulbright Scholar at University of Zagreb in Croatia and also led national committees focusing on issues of equity, diversity, teaching excellence and ethics. She is the author/co-author of five books, dozens of scholarly essays and numerous journalistic/trade essays. She is a consultant on diversity/gender issues. Yvette, who is a trained lawyer and registered mediator, is a member of the Indiana State Bar.
Yvette and her husband (Indiana University History Professor Emeritus A.B. Assensoh) are parents of two teen-age sons.