About
Dr. Kimberly Barrett is a retired academic, consultant and memoirist with significant experience as an executive working to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging for businesses, educational institutions and not-for-profit organizations. She has also held senior administrative positions at several universities including Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion among others.
She has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels and published in professional journals and newspapers. In addition to academic writing which included a dissertation entitled, An Examination of the Relationship Between Moral Development and Modern Prejudice, she has been published in professional magazines such as INSIGHT Into Diversity and Diverse Issues in Higher Education and contributed regular columns about current cultural and political issues in newspapers including the Leader Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), Shelby County Reporter (Alabama) and the Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin).
Throughout her career, Dr. Barrett has been active in a variety of boards and community organizations working to promote social and economic justice and the arts. Kimberly Barrett has graduate degrees clinical psychology (from Murray State University) and higher education administration (from Southern Illinois University- Carbondale).
She has received several awards for her work in diversity, education and community engagement. Some of these include being the recipient of the Diversity FIRST Award from the National Diversity Council, the Community Outreach Award from the Dayton Unit NAACP and the Unsung Hero Award from Celebrate Diversity Fox Cities.
Her new book, Rethinking Race: A Memoir, is available broadly online at outlets in the United States and Europe and in select local bookstores.
Featured Work
Rethinking Race: A Memoir
Rethinking Race: A Memoir was written as an act of compassionate antiracism. It is the story of the challenges and triumphs that an African American mother experiences raising her biracial, multiethnic child with her husband who most identify as white but who is a citizen of an Indigenous tribal nation. The story is one of transformation. It illustrates how the author evolved from taking race for granted as an immutable part of our identity to understanding that it is a very impactful illusion that each of us helps to create every day. In a time of deep divisions, it shows us how we are all one.
