about

Joanna Brooks is a national thought leader on faculty success, a devoted advocate for the academic humanities, and a scholar of modern catastrophes of human belonging.  As the Associate Vice President for Faculty Advancement and Student Success at San Diego State University, a large, public, diversity-comitted R1-aspirant university, she has extensive experience in organizing and implementing institution-wide initiatives in student success, strategic planning, faculty recruitment, retention, and development, and enrollment management.

She has served in academic administrative roles since 2009 and has experience in a full range of academic planning and budgets, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives, complex personnel issues, student advocacy and support, academic partnerships and initiatives, and leadership development.  Her portfolio of work includes parternships with and service on advisory boards for the National Humanities Center, Interfolio by Elsevier, Finsiteful, APLU, Academic Impressions, and SDSU’s NIH-funded Health Link initiative. She is among the founders of SDSU’s Digital Humanities program and the Initiative for Inclusive Leadership. She also has more than twenty years experience on both sides of the table in academic labor relations and has  served on systemwide CSU bargaining teams for California Faculty Association and UAW contracts. Before her current role, she served as Associate Dean of Graduate and Research Affairs, guiding enrollment and budget considerations for more than 70 masters and 20 doctoral programs.

She is an award-winning author or editor of ten books on race, religion, gender, social movements, and American culture. She has appeared in global media outlets including the BBC, NPR, the Daily Show, CNN, MSNBC, and the Washington Post and helped create and lead organizations advancing the rights and well-being of people seeking asylum, LGBTQ+ families, and progressive people of faith. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a proud fourth-generation Southern Californian with deep roots in the working-class American west.