Akilah Rosado, Vice President for Inclusion and Belonging, commits to fostering discussion at Barnard

Reflecting on her work in higher education and the New York State Assembly, Rosado is taking the initiative to interact with students, faculty, and staff to meet the needs of the Barnard community.

Photo by Haley Scull/The Barnard Bulletin

By Jahnavi Bolleddula

October 23, 2025

After taking office for his second term, President Trump passed one of his first executive orders to remove government diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, describing them as “radical and wasteful.” In response, colleges across the country shut down their DEI initiatives and offices amid concerns of losing federal funding. This summer, Barnard took a different approach, appointing Dr. Akilah Rosado to the newly established position of Vice President for Inclusion and Belonging.

Rosado’s journey into equity and organizational work began long before her professional career. Growing up in a politically active household in Brooklyn, she was immersed in conversations about justice and systems of oppression at an early age. Her father’s involvement in the Puerto Rican independence movement sparked her lifelong awareness of social inequities.

 “In my house, we always talked a lot about equity, oppression, systems of oppression, and how you think about ways of organizing people to break those systems of oppression,” Rosado explained.

After studying political science at Chatham College, a former women’s college that became co-ed in 2015, Rosado spent a decade working as a Legislative Aid and the Director of Constituent Affairs in the New York State Assembly, serving the district where she grew up. Although she felt her work was rewarding, Rosado recognized the role’s limitations.

“I got to talk to neighbors [about] what their struggles were, and realized after a while I couldn’t make the kind of change in those types of roles that I wanted to,” said Rosado. “But I had those opportunities when I got into higher education … and thought about systems, people, processes, and how [to] bring people together to improve conditions.”

Rosado was drawn to the role of Vice President for Inclusion and Belonging at Barnard after reflecting on her upbringing in New York City and her “transformative” experience attending a women’s college. Her focus this year will be building strategies that foster conversation across lines of difference and cultivating a sense of “inclusion, belonging, and mattering.” For Rosado, these three concepts are complementary.

“I am not a big fan of the acronyms DEI or JEDI or anything like that, because to me, it is almost performative; you’re sort of signaling to someone, ‘Hey, this is my ideology,’” said Rosado. “At the end of the day, in my opinion, it’s the work. The work is what we actually do in a pragmatic way. How do you interrupt systems that might be oppressive? How do you disrupt things in ways that … allow us to coexist on campus and in classrooms, in ways that feel good for all of us?” 

Four weeks into her role, Rosado’s main priority has been listening: her work includes one-on-one conversations and group discussions among students, faculty, and staff to better understand campus dynamics. Over the course of the fall semester, she plans to host student and faculty drop-in hours and community feedback sessions. 

Rosado has also participated in student events on campus, including the discussion of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” and “How it Feels to be Colored Me” during the New Student Orientation Program. It marked her first time directly interacting with the student body; Rosado noted the level of depth and sensitivity students possessed when engaging with the text.

“Having the opportunity to sit at a table doing some of the Zora Neale Hurston readings and reflecting on that, I was blown away. … I think that experience was really striking to me,” Rosado said.

Rosado is looking forward to interacting with and learning from the Barnard community. She hopes these connections will foster meaningful conversations and a stronger sense of belonging for students on campus.

“I am really excited about more conversations with some of the students,” she said. “I’m really curious about … finding ways of working with staff and faculty to create programs and initiatives that might be really helpful to the campus community.”