The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy is pleased to announce its new Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Tonia Guida, Ph.D. Dr. Guida begins her new role on February 1, 2023.
Dr. Tonia Guida is a higher education scholar-practitioner with more than nine years of experience teaching, training and facilitating social justice education and dialogue facilitation. She comes to the College of Pharmacy from the College of Natural Sciences, where she teaches and leads the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Concentration and is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for Critical Race Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Guida has experience as a university professor teaching courses related to learning and engaging around differences in social identities (UT Austin, CSUN, UCSD). She also worked as a higher education practitioner working with the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, pre-college outreach, study abroad initiatives for historically minoritized groups, Summer Bridge Programs and Inclusive Teaching & Learning work. She joins the college with leadership expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion issues in higher education. The underlying thread of her professional endeavors have centered around 1) engaging with issues of racial and social justice, 2) supporting students’ development of their critical consciousness and 3) working with historically minoritized groups as an effort to close the equity gap.
Dr. Guida’s research entails theorizing whiteness in higher education and developing more racially and socially just campus environments. Her most recent scholarship has been featured in Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, Urban Education, The Review of Higher Ed, Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice and Community College Review.
As Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Dr. Guida will lead the Diversity and Inclusion portfolio of the college and serve as the chief college spokesperson for all programs and initiatives relating to the college’s diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion (DEAI) goal to cultivate a culture of care for every individual within our college that impact everyone we educate, the research we conduct and the communities we serve. She will also join the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Division of Pharmacy Practice.