Now in its fourth year of operation, the North Star Collective Faculty Fellowship, which is designed to promote supportive community and racial healing for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) faculty members across New England, received a record number of applicants. For spring semester 2025, two Simmons faculty members, Associate Professor of Practice Samuel Odom from the School of Social Work and Assistant Professor Don Simmons from the School of Library and Information Science, are among the fellows.
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) announced 33 new recipients of the North Star Collective Faculty Fellowship, a professional development program for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) faculty members whose institutions belong to the North Star Collective (NSC).
Now in its fourth year, the program received its largest applicant pool to date. This fourth cohort of fellows brings the number of participants since its founding to 113.
The North Star Collective Fellowship is a semester-long fellowship (running from January to May) created by and for BIPOC faculty in New England. Grounded in the tenets of reparative justice, the Fellowship promotes racial trauma healing by providing a nourishing community of care, mentorship, and professional development for BIPOC faculty in all fields. Fellows receive a stipend, participate in writing retreats and professional development workshops, and regularly meet to write in communal settings throughout the semester.
Among the 33 North Star Fellows for 2025 are Samuel Odom, an Associate Professor of Practice in Simmons’ School of Social Work (SSW) and Don Simmons, an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS).
A new faculty member at Simmons, Odom is a veteran leader, clinician, and military social work scholar with more than two decades of professional experience in the field of combat social work. He is editor of the Journal of Military Social Work and Behavioral Health Services: An International Journal of Theory, Practice & Research. His research focuses on officers’ lived experiences, coping strategies, moral injury, and behavioral health. In November 2024, Odom served as the Master of Ceremonies at Simmons’ first annual Veterans Day Celebration.
Prior to joining the SLIS faculty, Don Simmons cultivated a career in academic and public libraries, including the White Plains Public Library and Westchester Community College Library. His research interests encompass misinformation, algorithmic bias, and information privilege, with an emphasis on progressive pedagogical practices for one-shot instruction. Simmons will soon expand his research agenda to include the intersection of AI with library and information studies and its impact on information systems.
Fellowship Advances Equity in Higher Education
Established by NEBHE in 2021, the Founding Co-Directors of the NSC are Tatiana M.F. Cruz, Assistant Professor and Interdisciplinary Program Director of Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Simmons University, and Kamille Gentles-Peart, a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Roger Williams University and a Fulbright U.S. Scholar. Together, they lead all aspects of the collective’s work including consultation with collective member institutions and the fellowship.
In addition to the Faculty Fellowship, the NSC provides programming for institutional members to collaborate, share best practices, and devise problem-solving methods related to faculty racial equity on their campuses. These include in-person, one-day gatherings for campus administrators, staff, and faculty. Generous support from the Hildreth Stewart Charitable Foundation, the Boston Foundation, and other institutional members help subsidize this program.
“BIPOC faculty face unique challenges in academia. We designed the NSC faculty fellowship to address these specific struggles and provide a nourishing community of care, peer mentorship, and restoration that supports fellows’ professional development as well as holistic wellbeing,” Co-Directors Cruz and Gentles-Peart commented.
Praise for North Star Collective
The co-directors have received positive feedback on the program to date:
- In 2024, 100% of the faculty fellows said they would enthusiastically recommend the fellowship to other BIPOC faculty.
- Similarly, high numbers (95%) said they were drawn to the fellowship because of its writing retreat and found it and the midpoint getaway the most valuable aspects of the program.
In 2024, the NSC and its two founding co-directors were honored by the ACE Women’s Network Massachusetts with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Justice Award at its International Women’s Day commemoration at Salem State University.
Among the program’s first three cohorts, five Simmons faculty members have been awarded North Star Fellowships. These scholars include Associate Professor of Practice and Doctor of Social Work Director Jacqueline Dyer, (former) Simmons Assistant Professor of Public Health Felipe Agudelo, SLIS Professor Rebecca Davis Stallworth, Assistant Professor of History Yunxin Li, and SSW faculty member Myrlene Jean-Venant.
“This year, we are excited to expand the North Star Collective to 20 institutions and make this community available to more BIPOC faculty in the region,” Cruz and Gentles-Peart remarked. “The record number of applications this cycle speaks to the continued need for affinity spaces of healing for racially marginalized faculty in higher education. Now with over 100 fellows across four cohorts, we are beginning to realize the transformative impact of the NSC in New England.”