Culturally Proficient Leadership

Becoming a culturally proficient leader requires the kind of courage, clarity, and insight that can only come from looking inward first. It’s a personal learning journey of will and skill, and if you’re up to the challenge, one that will change how you see your school, your students, and yourself as you build your own cultural competence. Consider this second edition of Culturally Proficient Leadershipyour personal road map for navigating that journey.   

Each chapter of Culturally Proficient Leadership invites you to put your experiences up front and challenges you to reframe your story based on multiple viewpoints—now, notably, with the addition of new coauthors Delores Lindsey and Eloise Kemp Terrell, who have their own remarkable stories and insight to share. Overall, all four authors will help you answer the critical question "Is what we say what we do?" utilizing the tools of Cultural Proficiency to 

• engage in Reflections and Cultural Interviews to explore what you learn about those who are culturally different from you 
• develop a Cultural Autobiography to provide a picture of the cultural memberships that have influenced who you are as a person 
• use the Cultural Proficiency Continuum to examine your progress as a leader in serving your students and communities
• prepare an intentional Leadership Plan that summarizes your journey from Cultural Precompetence to Cultural Proficiency

The central "inside-out" premise of Cultural Proficiency is that engaging in deep introspection around one’s personal beliefs, values, and behaviors in response to human differences is the first step toward systemic educational reform. We invite you to embark on this journey of self-awareness, of moral courage, and of the life-affirming power of human diversity.    

"I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together—unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and may not come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction: toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren." 
—Barack Obama, Los Angeles Times, 2008   

Raymond Terrell, EdD. retired as Associate Dean for Research and Diversity and member of he department of Educational Leadership at Miami University, Oxford< Ohio. He previously worked at California State University, Los Angeles where he served as Professor of Educational Administration and for five years he was the Dean of the School of Eduction. His journey in education began in a public school district where he taught English to junior and senior high students;. He also was a principal and an assistant superintend in the same district. Dr. Terrell is co-author on a number of books including , Cultural Proficiency: and a A Manual for School Leaders, Cultural Proficient Leadership. His books and numerous articles and life’s work have all focused  on issues of equity and inclusion Eloise Terrell is a life-long champion for social justice, equity and inclusion. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband who is also a co-author on this edition of the book. She worked for 15 years in California as a banker holding a number of positions including Teller, Teller Supervisor, Assistant Branch Supervisor and Platform Supervisor. After returning to Cincinnati she rejoined the work force by obtaining a CDA (Child Development Associate Credential) and spent ten years supervising a progressive day care center. She has been active in voter registration efforts and managing election campaigns for candidates who held moral and ethical positions. Randall B. Lindsey is Emeritus Professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He has served as a teacher, an administrator, executive director of a non-profit corporation, as Interim Dean at California Lutheran University, as Distinguished Educator in Residence at Pepperdine University, and as Chair of the Education Department at the University of Redlands. All of Randy’s experiences have been in working with diverse populations and his area of study is the behavior of white people in multicultural settings. His Ph.D. is in Educational Leadership from Georgia State University, his Master of Arts in Teaching is in History Education from the University of Illinois, and his B.S. in Social Science Education is from Western Illinois University. He has served as a junior high school and high school teacher and as an administrator in charge of school desegregation efforts. At Cal State, L.A. he served as Chair of the Division of Administration and Counseling and as Director of the Regional Assistance Centers for Educational Equity, a regional race desegregation assistance center. With co-authors he has written several books and articles on applying the Cultural Proficiency Framework in various contexts. Email – randallblindsey@gmail.com Website - CCPEP.org Twitter - @RBLindsey41 Dr. Delores B. Lindsey served as assistant principal, principal, and county office administrator. She served as Executive Director of the regional school leadership center. Delores uses her skills as Cognitive Coach and Adaptive Schools trainer blended with her understanding and skills as a cultural proficiency trainer to design and implement the 10-Day Certification Program for Culturally Proficient Educational Practice. She served as assistant professor at California State University San Marcos for more than 10 years. She retired from the institution; however, she has not retired from the education profession. Her primary focus is developing culturally proficient leaders. She helps educational leaders examine their organizations’ policies and practices and their individual beliefs and values about cross-cultural communication. Her favorite reflective questions are, Who are we? and, Are we who we say we are? Delores and her husband, Randall (her favorite SAGE/Corwin author), continue to co-write about the application of the four tools of Cultural Proficiency. Her most recent publications which are on Corwin’s bestseller list are Leading While Female: A Culturally Proficient Response for Gender Equity, and My Leading While Female Journey: A Guided Reflective Journal with Trudy Arriaga and Stacie Stanley.