theforcedpivot with Guest DeLeon Gray

theforcedpivot with Antoine Medley

theforcedpivot Podcast welcomes DeLeon Gray, PhD. Gray shares his story of life pivots and how he arrived at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.
Gray is CEO of Black and Belonging (www.blackandbelonging.com) and an associate professor of educational psychology and equity at North Carolina State University, where he has developed three new doctoral courses on School Belonging, Equity-Focused Quantitative Methods, and Community-Engaged Approaches to Educational Research. He is enthusiastic about working jointly with education stakeholders to disrupt structural aspects of schooling environments that leave historically marginalized student groups vulnerable to anxieties about belonging.

His research is recognized by prestigious honors, including the Research on Socially and Economically Underrepresented Populations Award (RISE-UP) from the Association for Psychological Science and a 2018 Best Article Award for his collaborative publication, "Black and Belonging at School: A Case for Interpersonal, Instructional, and Institutional Opportunity Structures," in Educational Psychologist.

Gray has been establishing a national presence for his research, mentoring, and outreach activities. To date, he has secured more than $2.5 million in federally funded research grants as principal investigator or co-principal investigator. The overarching aim of his grant-funded community work is to amplify the voices of young people and support their motivation to achieve for the sake of racial progress and social uplift.

For Gray and his team, centering community engagement has resulted in several (intended and unintended) impacts for both his partnering schools in Durham, NC, including:

1. Developing new equity-focused methodological approaches for assessing belonging-centered instructional practices
2. Developing a graduate recruitment pipeline of equity-focused graduate students who were attracted to our community-engaged activities and who have chosen to support their same school district as community-engaged scholars while pursuing doctoral degrees

Black Enterprise featured Gray as one of 100 men of color who are "living up to a standard of excellence and using their talents and influence in their respective industries to shift the perception of men of color to create and encourage a positive narrative."

He previously received the Change Agent Award of Appreciation from St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, NC, for his community-engaged scholarship in predominantly Black K-12 schools. He recently served as a Scholar in Residence in the College of Education, Michigan State University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
Contact the show [e-mail]
Website: http://www.theforcedpivot.com
Music Credits:
Interlude 2 (KillMyVibe) by Dj DCM