LaDonna Young
SENIOR DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS & EQUITY INITIATIVES
LaDonna Young is the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships and Equity Initiatives at Motivate Lab and a champion for educational equity and racial justice. With over twenty years of urban K-12 and higher education practitioner and administrative experience, LaDonna supports Motivate Lab by providing leadership and strategic vision for new partner relationships and equity-centered initiatives. Before joining Motivate Lab, LaDonna served as the founding Dean of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Mathematics at Southwest Tennessee Community College (Memphis, TN), which led to the creation of The Office of High Impact Practices and Innovation (HIPI) and the Gatekeeper Faculty Fellowship, which is a multi-year, faculty-driven initiative targeted at closing the equity gaps in the College's Top 12 Gatekeeper (Gateway) courses. As an Achieving the Dream Equity Coach, LaDonna enjoys coaching and challenging practitioners to interrogate and mitigate policies, practices, pedagogy, and systems that perpetuate (in)equity and opportunity gaps for historically marginalized, particularly Black and Brown students. LaDonna believes education is at its best when all of humanity is centered in educational practice. We all do better when we all do better.
LaDonna is an Alabama (Roll Tide!) native and enjoys all things hip-hop and cookies-n-crème related. She earned her Bachelor’s from Christian Brothers University and Masters of Arts in Teaching and her Ed. D. in Higher and Adult Education at the University of Memphis.