Dr. Valerie Stokes ’93 Director of Academic Diversity Initiatives

712-707-7084
vstokes@nwciowa.edu

Dr. Valerie Stokes serves as Northwestern’s director of academic diversity initiatives, co-chairs the college's Diversity Resource Committee (DRC), and chairs its Diversity Action Plans Committee. In those roles, she is responsible for helping faculty live into NWC's Vision for Diversity through the development of annual Diversity Action Plans. She also leads a Faculty Learning Community for professors from various disciplines who all teach a cross-cultural engagement core course at Northwestern.

In addition to co-leading the DRC, Dr. Stokes serves as a social work professor at Northwestern. She is passionate about examining social justice through the lens of social work. Among the books she includes in her courses are The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong, by Karen Gonzalez;  Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation, by Latasha Morrison;  How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice , by Jemar Tisby; and  White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White, by Daniel Hill. She has led a continuing education workshop titled "Culturally Responsive Practice: Engaging with the Latino Population" for social workers, health care providers, counselors and pastors and has given presentations at the Council on Social Work Education and the North American Association of Christians in Social Work on “Equipping Faculty in Critical DEI Conversations at Christian Institutions in Higher Education.”

A Northwestern College graduate, Dr. Stokes earned her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Nebraska Omaha and doctorate in human development and educational psychology from the University of South Dakota. She serves on her church’s local needs team and is active in its outreach to Latino immigrants in the community. She and her husband also invited two undocumented, unaccompanied Latino boys to join their family and became their permanent legal guardians, opening their home “because of a deep faith conviction and a call to radical hospitality.”