Transformation Series: Practicing Beloved Community

Join CIIS' Division of Community Engagement and Belonging (DCEB) for its first Fall 2025 Transformation series event with Vice President of Community Engagement and Belonging Rachel Bryant and Beloved Community Consultant and former CIIS Dean of Students and Director of Diversity Shirley Strong.

They will discuss the practice of Beloved Community during turbulent times.

What is the Transformation Series?

The Transformation Series is part of the Beloved Community Initiative's commitment to critically engage with the CIIS community by platforming inspiring voices. Designed to enhance our mission of cultivating courageous conversations, bridging divides, and building connections, we hope that this series will inspire hope and transformative action. 

Our Guest Speaker

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Rachel Bryant, M.A., is an educator, leader, and healer with more than two decades of experience in public and community mental health. She serves as Vice President, Community Engagement and Belonging at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where she has helped teach, mentor, and launch the careers of hundreds of emerging mental health clinicians from diverse backgrounds. With a pedagogical and therapeutic orientation in Black, Indigenous, and Liberation Praxis, Rachel is dedicated to working alongside others to heal the soul wounds of poverty, violence, and addiction in our communities.
 

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Shirley Strong, M.Ed., M.A., is a social justice educator and advocate committed to increasing equity and inclusion in higher education and healthcare for underserved and vulnerable populations. She has worked in higher education, philanthropy and social justice for over 35 years, including eight years as Dean of Students and Director of Diversity at CIIS and five years as Chief Diversity Officer at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California. Currently, Ms. Strong serves as senior advisor to the Structural Competency Working Group (SCWG), a cross-section of health professionals who train health organizations to recognize and address structural racism in health care and to develop policies and procedures to improve health equity. She is committed to integrating spirituality with activism in the service of the Beloved Community, as envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other prophetic leaders.